By SEN GUINGGUING

A member of the Bohol Sangguniang Panlalawigan who is one of the mechanical contractors of the three mine sites whose equipment, barges and guest houses were burned down by New People’s Army guerillas in a coordinated raid Monday lost his Toyota Innova car worth P1.2 million. The car, a 2010 model, was strafed with gunfire by the attacking rebels. This was confirmed last night by Board Member Gerardo Garcia of the second district in an exclusive interview with the Post. Garcia, an engineer, is a contractor of Taganito Mining Corp. providing the mechanical requirements of the mining company whose partners are Japanese nationals who operate a nickel smelting plant inside the more than 400 hectares mining site. Aside from Garcia, other Boholanos who own heavy equipment like bulldozers, backhoes, loaders, and dump trucks are sub-contractors in the hauling of mined deposits in the vast mining area. During its peak, about 600 dump trucks were owned by Boholano sub-contractors but the figure has since been trimmed down to about 200.

According to one hauler who requested anonymity, the Surigao business was so lucrative that many local contractors resorted to borrow money in the banks to bankroll their Surigao operations. Many Bohol contractors made money in the Surigao hauling transaction but many others lost their shirts after they were milked dry by their own men manning the operations. The contractors who lost heavily in what otherwise was a profitable enterprise were those who operated by “remote control”—meaning, those who stayed behind in Bohol while their caretakers were running the business in the mine site. The take-charge guys in Surigao were said to have shortchanged their bosses in Bohol by under reporting deliveries prompting the owners to call it quits. The local contractors were lured with the prospect of participating in the lucrative contract of providing the hauling volume of 15 to 20 cargo vessels to haul nickel deposits in the three mine sites in Claver town alone in Surigao del Norte. Each vessel has a capacity of 3,350 truckloads of raw minerals for transport to either China, Japan and Australia.

The huge volume of hauling requirements prodded the many Boholano businessmen to take a plunge into the Surigao mines hauling business. Among the local businessmen who were lured into joining the exodus of local sub-contractors enticed by the juicy hauling contracts in Surigao were Balilihan Mayor Domiciano Chatto, Mayor Leon Calipusan, former Dagohoy mayor Sofronio “Moloy” Apat, Jr., Ricardo Lim, Butch Borja, Alberto Baguio, Lito Javier, Boy Jumamoy, to name a few. But some of these contractors have since chickened out from the Surigao business after complaining about alleged “interference” of both the military and the NPA. Monday’s atrocity on Surigao’s huge mining concessionaires that involved about 300 NPA rebels was reported to be about revolutionary taxes. The communist rebels attack resulted in the burning down of 10 dump trucks, eight backhoes, two barges and a guest house, according to police and military officials. The rebels also seized several guns from private security guards and smashed computers in offices.

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which is currently holding peace talks with the Aquino administration. The military said the refusal of Taganito Mining Corp. (TMC), Taganito HPAL Nickel Corp. and Platinum Group Metals Corp. (PGMC) to give in to the NPA demand for a revolutionary tax prompted the attacks. In the aftermath of the NPA hit, it was gathered that except that of the Toyota Innova of Engr. Garcia, all the heavy equipment owned by Boholanos were spared of the burning rampage. A Boholano contractor who just arrived from Surigao confirmed that all the Boholano-owned equipment used by the three mine operators for hauling purposes were spared apparently due to the owners’ a special concession’ with the attackers. A source told the Post that the local sub-contractors have acceded to an arrangement that the main contractor were making a cut for every truck load of raw materials supposedly representing the NPAs share of the transaction.

In the case of Engr. Garcia, he said the reason why he suffered a minor casualty was because of his good relations in the area including all the people involved in the operations like the local officials and the NPAs operating in the region. He did not elaborate. He owns the Taihei AllTech Construction (Phils), Inc. which bagged a multi-dollar contract in the fabrication of machines used in the nickel smelting process. As a contractor, he owns cranes and other heavy equipment but the same were spared during the burning spree except the strafing incident of his service vehicle. According to Engr. Garcia since the raid Monday, the mine site was declared off-limits to mine employees and sub-contractors after it was believed to have been littered with mines by the retreating rebels. Days before the raid, a rebel leader called for the dismantling of mining operations that wreak havoc on the environment and displace indigenous communities. TMC and PGMC are among the country’s leading exporters of nickel ore to Japan, China and Australia.

TMC is owned by Nickel Asia Corp., the Philippines’ largest nickel producer with Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. as its partner. Taganito HPAL is a sister company of TMC. In June, Nickel Asia said its sales volumes were likely to increase about 20 percent this year, with about 60 percent of output going to China. The company was looking to sell about 10 million tons of ore this year, topping last year’s record of 8.3 million tons. The reason why Boholanos became part of the Surigao hauling business was the connection of Fernando “Ding” Borja as operations manager of Platinum Mineral Resources Corp., a partner of Taganito Mining Corp. Borja is a close ally of Salvador “Buddy” Zamora, top honcho of Platinum Minerals. On his own and his local partners like Lucio Lim, Jr. of Lite Shipping fame, Zamora and Borja also own the Orbistondo Mining Corp., another mining concessionaire in the Surigao area. Not only were there casualties in terms of heavy equipment, barges and buildings, there was also toll in human lives. Three TMC security guards, were killed in the attack, said Colonel Rodrigo Diapana, commander of the Army’s 402nd Infantry Brigade based in Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur province.

JAPS UNHARMED

None of the 20 Japanese working for a joint-project between TMC and Sumitomo were harmed during the raid, according to reports.. The Japanese live on the same compound that the rebels raided in Taganito village. In Camp Aguinaldo, a military spokesperson said the attacks in Surigao del Norte were extortion-related. “The New People’s Army is already losing mass-base support so it uses force or coercion to get financial support. That’s why this happened,” said Colonel Arnulfo Burgos Jr., public affairs chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

SOFT TARGETS

Burgos considered mining firms and other private businesses “soft targets” for the NPA. The attacks came days after the spokesperson of the National Democratic Front in Mindanao called on the NPA to dismantle “environmentally exploitative and destructive large-scale mining companies” operating in Caraga. Jorge Madlos alias Ka Oris said the Aquino administration’s failure to protect the environment was displacing indigenous communities and was causing  massive environmental havoc. “The revolutionary movement shall continue to uphold and to carry our national policy of banning and dismantling large-scale mining, logging and agribusiness companies with a track record of violating revolutionary policies,” Madlos said in a statement. The mining operations of TMC and PGMC in the hinterlands of Claver were marred with controversies amid alleged irregularities in the acquisition of mine permits, displacements of “lumad” (indigenous people) communities and environmental destruction. In May, the Tribal Coalition of Mindanao Inc. (Tricom) asked the Supreme Court to cancel mining permits, licenses and agreements granted to TMC, PGMC and three other mining firms over supposed spurious tribal consent documents in securing licenses and permits.

Clashes

Tribal communities also alleged that open-pit mines operated by the firms posed danger to the environment and health of the lumad communities in Claver. Sporadic clashes between soldiers and communist rebels were  reported in Claver and adjacent towns of Gigacuit and Bacuag as government troops pursued the rebels. With reports from PDI)