Environment Secretary Gina Lopez shows a mining audit report during a meeting in Manila. Erik De Castro, Reuters

MANILA – Environment Secretary Gina Lopez said Friday a multi-sectoral review of the mining industry would be “recommendatory,” as she stood pat on her decision to shutter or suspend over two dozen mines.

Lopez and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez agreed to the review on Thursday, after the affected companies complained that they were not given due process. She said this was to “appease the miners.”

“I feel that the consultation I’ve done is enough,” Lopez told ANC’s “Market Edge with Cathy Yang.”

“At the end of that day, even that review process is recommendatory to me. I still make the decisions and my decision on no mining in watersheds, I don’t see that as changing because water is life,” she said.

Fifteen of the 23 mines Lopez ordered closed are located in watersheds. Asked about the 8 others, located mostly in Mindanao’s Caraga region, she said the area “deserves the right to breathe” after years of mining.

Lopez said waters off Surigao have turned into a “red sea.”

“They say it’s normal, I debate that. There’s been mining in Surigao for so long,” she said.

Lopez said Thursday’s meeting centered on “legalities” and it took her and Dominguez “a long time” to come up with a statement as co-chairpersons of the Mineral Industry Coordinating Council.

“I didn’t like the implication that I had not followed due process. I have and I can prove it,” she said.