The Board of RTG Mining Inc. announced that Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ("DENR") signed Department Administrative Order No. 2021-40 on 23 December 2021, lifting the four-year-old ban on the open-pit method of mining for copper, gold, silver, and complex ores in the country. The DENR order covers all mining tenement holders that will adopt a surface mining method and sets strict conditions and requirements for those that would use the open- pit method to ensure all mining is undertaken to world's best practices.