The Supreme Court has denied the motions for reconsideration filed by Oriental Peninsula Resources Group and favored Platinum Group Metals Corporation in all four cases arising from relentless attempts to deprive Platinum of its rights over nickel mines in Palawan.

In a 23-page decision penned by Justice Arturo Brion, the special second division of the High Tribunal also denied the motions to refer the earlier decision to the Supreme Court en banc filed by Oriental subsidiary Citinickel Mines and Development Corporation.

PGMC’s legal counsel said the cases focused mainly on whether the jurisdiction over the dispute lies with the Regional Trial Court of Palawan or the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Panel of Arbitrators.

RTC Palawan had ruled in favor of PGMC which claimed that Citinickel and mining claim owner Olympic Mines and Development Corporation had violated PGMC’s operating agreement with Olympic after Olympic unilaterally voided its agreement with PGMC and surreptitiously signed a similar agreement with Citinickel.

On the other hand, the POA had favored Citinickel-Olympic after claiming jurisdiction on the belief that the issue was a mining dispute instead of a simple civil case.

If the SC junks a second motion for reconsideration filed by Oriental-Citinickel, PGMC’s counsel said the Palawan RTC will resume hearing mainly to finally declare who has the right to mine the property and if PGMC is entitled to actual damages of P50 million.

“There is no need to ask the DENR to recognize the validity of the operating agreement since the court has already nullified the ruling of POA cancelling the PGMC’s operating agreement with Olympic —meaning the agreement is valid and subsisting,” PGMC’s lawyer said.

He added that once the court has quieted the title, PGMC will then ask the DENR and other government agencies to again recognize its operating agreement so it can resume mining operations and shipments within four to six months after finality of the SC decision.

With the High Court’s rulings, Oriental is left with no business to pursue since it has lost the case for the right to operate its sole mining operation which it had claimed to have been operating at a cost of hundreds of millions of pesos in capital expenditure.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Oriental said it has fully used up the P804 million it raised from the initial public offering allegedly for mine site and camp development, land acquisition and for the building of roads, network, bridges, a pier and dams.

However, PGMC had earlier questioned these alleged expenses since Oriental-Citinickel had never gained access to the mine site while the dispute for control was raging since PGMC had full control over the property while the case has been pending in the courts.