The Philippines: State-Sanctioned Informalization

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the Philippines has witnessed a massive boom in mostly informal ASGM. Across the peninsula, one can now find a wide variety of ASGM-activities: from subsistence-oriented and family-based activities, to what is locally referred to as medium-scale mining. Existing explanations, which treat ASGM-expansion as a product of poverty or as a response to opportunities for accumulation on the part of local elites, are incapable of fully accounting for this situation. This chapter draws attention to how ASGM-expansion fits in with structural trends in the Philippine mining economy. After the “golden decade” of the 1970s, the Philippine mining industry fell victim to a deep crisis and released critical resources (notably labor and technical knowhow) for the subsequent expansion of ASGM. This expansion provided a response to rising cost pressures, as ASGM succeeded in mobilizing cheap and flexible labor power. Meanwhile the national government is implementing formalization policies that do not consider the plight of informal workers, while local government officials are legitimizing ASGM through their personal involvement, and in some cases even through regulatory interventions that give it a semblance of formality.