Aging mines weigh down Benguet economic output

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — The declining output of Benguet’s aging mines is weighing down the province’s economic growth last year, government economists said at a briefing on Wednesday.

Benguet is home to the country’s first mining ventures that started during the American colonial era.

In 2025, Benguet recorded an economic growth of 3.3 percent, reflecting a slowdown compared to its 5-percent growth in 2024, according to Imelda Buyuccan, chief statistician of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in the province.

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Buyuccan detailed Benguet’s economic performance based on its latest provincial product accounts.

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The slowdown comes as mining is down to 2.7-percent growth.

When asked by Benguet Board Member Lady Charmaine Molintas-Likigan if the slump in mining’s performance explains her province’s abrupt economic slowdown, Buyuccan acknowledged, pointing to its aging mining operations.

She added that mining decline has been a trend in Benguet in the last four years.

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The tenement of Benguet Corp., historically the first Philippine mine which opened in 1903, is already 123 years old. The Itogon Suyoc Mines, now operated by Apex Mining Co., was started in 1935, while the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co. began in 1936, both now at over 90 years.

Philex Mining Corp., which is a publicly traded company, is now in its seventh decade extracting gold and copper, an operation that began in 1955.

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Higher cost, poor weather

Many of these mines continue to operate, some receiving new leases on life from new investors, which should ease Molintas-Likigan’s concerns about the industry’s health in this part of the country, said Vivian Romero, an economist of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) in the Cordillera region.

“When we say aging, we observe a decline in the grades of metal reserves owned by these mines,” Romero said.

Mining firms also cope with the “higher cost of materials” because expenditures must match the value of ore being extracted, she pointed out.

Poor weather, such as the recent monsoon rains in Benguet and other parts of the Cordillera, also affects operations when access roads are damaged by erosion, Romero said.

Mining in the region last year generated P16.915 billion, with its total gold output valued in 2025 at P11.585 billion, followed by copper at P4.523 billion. Gold extracted by pocket miners or small-scale artisanal mine operations are valued at P378 million, according to an MGB minerals profile.

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A Regional Development Council task force was organized to focus on programs that would make unlicensed pocket miners register with the government and sell their gold to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, said Aldrin Federico Bahit Jr., PSA chief statistician in the Cordillera. /cb