N. Vizcaya court halts Aussie firm’s demolition work
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–A local court has halted the ongoing demolition activities of houses in a remote village in the mountain town of Kasibu, being carried out by an Australian mining firm.
Judge Vincent Eden Panay of the Regional Trial Court here on Wednesday issued a 72-hour temporary restraining order against the clearing operations of OceanaGold Philippines, Inc., which is preparing to construct its gold-copper mining project there.
Quirino health workers decry unpaid benefits
CABARROGUIS, Quirino–Health workers in this province are up in arms against the non-payment by the provincial government of their hazard pay, while denouncing local politicians for their supposed reckless spending of public funds.
The provincial chapter of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) here on Monday slammed the alleged apathy shown by the provincial leadership for their failure to settle unpaid benefits of about 300 health workers.
Dr. Reynald Narbarte, president of AHW Quirino said their members are demanding the hazard pay that they are supposed to receive, as mandated by Republic Act 7305 or the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.
Miner buried alive at Aussie firm’s mine site
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–An artisanal miner was killed after he was buried while inside a tunnel in the remote village of Didipio in upland Kasibu town, site of a proposed large-scale mining project by a foreign company.
Supt. Domingo Lucas, acting police director, said the victim, one Job Ananayo, a small-scale miner from nearby Wangal village, was buried alive when the tunnel collapsed in the sub-village of Dinauyan, at around 11 a.m. on Sunday.
N. Vizcaya, Quirino, Ifugao law studes blast GMA, join ‘resign’ calls
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–Law students from this province and Ifugao have joined calls for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, expressing exasperation over the “growing wanton acts of large-scale corruption” allegedly committed under her government.
Law students said the people have grown weary and frustrated, so that the only solution is to change the leadership that has been perceived to be either “an active party, an accomplice of or a passive onlooker” on anomalous deals in government.
“It is now high time for us to take action. The Arroyo regime has been duping us for a long while now. We cannot just stand here and let all these to go on,” said Dr. Bernard Balangatan, law student and university professor.
Antimining villagers bare threats from gunmen
KASIBU, Nueva Vizcaya–Residents in an upland mining community here on Thursday denounced the alleged atrocities committed by armed men, who have been securing the ongoing earth-moving activities of a foreign mining company.
The villagers, mostly Ifugaos, called on the Commission on Human Rights to investigate the use of armed men from the Philippine National Police’s provincial mobile group (PMG) to secure the entry of OceanaGold Philippines Inc., an Australian firm, into private lands in the area.
Residents here have been protesting the entry of the firm, which is attempting to conduct large-scale mining for gold and copper in Didipio village despite its failure to obtain the consent of the local community.
Anti-mining villagers fight back, sue DENR-Vizcaya chief for abuse
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–The provincial chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) here was charged for alleged abuse of authority before the office of the Ombudsman for supposedly using his position to harass anti-mining residents to push the interests of a foreign mining company.
Eight anti-mining villagers from upland Didipio village in Kasibu town said Roberto Apigo here abused his authority by summoning complainants for alleged violation of forestry laws, a criminal act, but later turned out to be an arm-twisting strategy to force them to vacate their lands.
“Under the guise of an investigation for violation of the Revised Forestry Code of the Philippines, what (Apigo) intended and attempted to accomplish was an ‘administrative dialogue’ in which he tried to facilitate the sale of complainants’ lands to a corporation,” the complaint said.
The complainants, who are officers and members of the Didipio Earth-Savers’ Multi-purpose Association, a people’s organization, have refused to sell their rights over their lands which occupy portions of the primary impact zone of the proposed Didipio gold-copper project.
Mine operator OceanaGold Philippines, Inc., a 100-percent Australian firm, has been attempting to buy access to lands in Didipio to start its construction phase, amid stiff opposition from residents there.
Claiming it is acting as agent of government, OceanaGold has been buying access to private lands in the area, invoking the constitutional power of the state to forcibly acquire private property for government projects.
The DENR, on the other hand, has been trying to eject villagers whom it found to be occupying what it classified as forest lands by filing criminal charges against them.
Desama officials had earlier denounced DENR for filing charges against their poor members, in order to satisfy the needs of a foreign mining company.
“If they would eject us from our lands and charge us for occupying these because these are supposedly forest lands, then they should not allow a (OceanaGold) to occupy it,” said Peter Duyapat, Desama president.
In December 2006, complainants received a “Notice of Violation and Summons” issued by Apigo, which required them to personally appear before him on January 9, 2007.
In that summons, the complainants were warned that their failure to attend the “hearing” shall be deemed a waiver of their right to be heard, and a ground for the filing of criminal cases against them.
But complainants, then assisted by lawyer Mary Ann Dela Peña of the Legal Rights Center, attended the supposed hearing, but said they were surprised to see the presence of OceanaGold officials.
Apigo purportedly told the group that should they agree to voluntarily leave their lands, the DENR would no longer pursue the filing of criminal charges against them.
“(Apigo) gravely abused his office when he issued strongly-worded legal processes so complainants–simple, peace-loving people who respect the law–would be threatened to attend a proceeding, which turned out to be different from that stated in the summons itself,” the complainants said.
“(He) also acted contrary to law as it is a known legal principle that criminal cases may not be subject to compromise,” they added.
Sought for comment, Apigo downplayed the charges, saying it was the handiwork of non-government organizations who want to derail the Didipio gold-copper project.
“We (at the DENR) were just doing our job. The complaint has been referred to our legal department and I assure you that everything will be put in order,” he told this writer.
In a letter, the complainants’ counsel had formally asked Apigo to cite the legal bases of his actions but he reportedly never responded.
The DENR official eventually filed criminal charges against the complainants for alleged illegal occupation of forest lands, after the complainants refused to agree to a settlement.
Pinay’s dream on RP strife tops NY speech tilt
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–A Filipina has stood out among Americans to give more meaning to a US event that was meant to remember their country’s triumphs against racial discrimination.
Anne Richie Garcia, a 29-year old English teacher from the Philippine Science High School-Cagayan Valley campus here, has won a speech competition in this year’s week-long commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. held at New York University in the US on Jan. 24.
Garcia is the first Asian to win the top prize in the 3rd Annual MLK Oratorical Contest, sponsored by NYU’s Steinhardt Graduate Student Organization, according to Ena Hilaire, NYU graduate assistant.
Garcia’s winning piece “Altruism above Poverty” focuses on human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples, student activists, peasant leaders and journalists in the Philippines.
She is currently in the US taking up a masters’ degree in educational theater, through a two-year study grant under the Ford Foundation-International Fellowships Program.
The MLK speech event is part of a week-long celebration that aims to “(establish) a tradition that will honor the dream” that King has advocated more than 40 years ago, according to the NYU website.
King Jr. won his Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964 for leading the call for action against racial discrimination in the US. In August 1963 he organised a now historic march to Washington where he delivered his now-famous speech, “I Have a Dream”.
He is honored as the man “who has never abandoned his faith in the unarmed struggle he is waging, who has suffered for his faith, who has been imprisoned on many occasions, whose home has been subject to bomb attacks, whose life and the lives of his family have been threatened, and who nevertheless has never faltered.”
At the NYU event, speeches were meant to address the theme, “Dare to D.R.E.A.M” where D.R.E.A.M. is acronym for Deconstruct, Reflect, Envision, Act, and Mobilize” or the contest’s specific theme, “The Time is Always Right to Do What Is Right.”
“I was somehow inspired by my subject in world drama last semester. It was about human rights violations in the world, which, according to my professor, is the real world drama,” she said about how she drew the motivation to write her winning speech.
But what Garcia thought made her clinch the top prize in the competition is the resolution offered by her talk.
She said: “The dream beyond my play, beyond my scholarship grant, beyond this speech, is my dream to participate in the world’s quest for social justice. Yes, to dream with commitment is more than enough to comfort a people’s grief.”
Garcia realized that delivering a speech about poverty and strife in her country, in front of an audience composed of different races was “the most difficult speech that I had to do, even more difficult than the eulogy I delivered for my father.”
“I thought, the audience would not care, and would just say, ‘girl, you seem to have ended up in the wrong place, talking about the sorry state of your country because you know what? We don’t care’,” she said.
To Garcia’s surprise, the audience–composed mostly of Americans–was visibly sympathetic, and the others were close to tears. She recounts how after her speech, one NYU official, a black American woman, came up to her, shook her hand and said, “Your speech was powerful. I could not hold back my tears”.
In one part of her speech, Garcia said: “It pains the heart to see the Philippines crawl in the darkness of poverty due to the political circus that’s been fooling her people. Government officials buy votes in broad day light, abuse of power is done in a snap, and leaders who fight for the poor are killed.”
She continued: “True, my country is a third world where parents tighten their belts as they rush to work, skip meals and wear the same glued pair of shoes for a hand to mouth existence; where kids, on slippers, walk or hike to school hungry, sit on the cold floor with a nationwide no-child-left-behind policy; where women leave their families to work as house maids, factory workers, entertainers, to send brothers and sisters nephews and nieces to school, there are lots of them going to all parts of the globe that Filipina was once defined in a dictionary as domestic helper;
“Where journalists, student activists, and union leaders serve the masses unselfishly and may get killed on-the-spot at whatever time of the day; where people desperately wish to dream of numbers that could win the lotto and finally, with the blink of an eye, wake up from their nightmare – poverty.”
As other finalists that went on stage before her, mostly black Americans, gave out specific details and statistics about human rights violations in the US, Garcia refused to be intimidated.
“I tried to establish that mental attitude that winning is not what is important; the most important thing is that a Filipina is there to voice out the sentiments of her own people. It was not about winning, but more importantly, just a chance to be heard,” she said.
Garcia said she is currently working on a play that would try to focus on the victims of extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances in the country, to be played by her students and local talents upon her return from the US.
“I gathered data from the internet and I was shocked by the sheer number. It was a different feeling writing a play just for the sake of it, compared to writing a play for the victims purposely to tell the world about their plight,” she said.
War on mining company’s demolition plans unites tribe
KASIBU, Nueva Vizcaya–About 100 tribal folk, both belonging to the pro- and anti-mining factions of villagers, on Tuesday joined forces to defy the planned demolition of their houses by a foreign mining company that is pushing for a gold-copper mining project in upland Didipio village here.
Villagers belonging to the Didipio Earth Savers Multipurpose Association (Desama) and the Didipio United Peoples’ Association (Dupa) fenced off lots and guarded the premises against the entry of an 80-member demolition team hired by OceanaGold Philippines Inc., an Australian firm.
The team was escorted by about 30 heavily armed men from OceanaGold’s security agency and the Philippine National Police’s provincial mobile group.
The villagers assailed the company for allegedly using force, deceit and intimidation in its bid to continue dismantling houses of Dupa members, despite the failure of negotiations on their supposed compensation.
Desama is a group of about 700 antimining villagers, who, for the past 14 years have been protesting the company’s entry into the area. They have vowed never to give up their land.
Dupa, on the other hand, is a group of about 200 Ifugao tribal folk, mostly miners, who have bought subdivided lots in the two-hectare property formerly owned by Peter Cayong and the site of the planned open pit for the mining project.
The members used to support the project but organized themselves in 2006 supposedly to guard their rights as landowners in dealing with the company.
OceanaGold is trying to clear the land of houses to make way for its proposed Didipio gold-copper mining project, one of the Arroyo administration’s 23 priority mining projects.
The foreign firm is invoking its right to access all types of land in Didipio – whether public or private or even forest land – under the financial technical assistance agreement (FTAA) granted in 1994 to its predecessor company, Climax Mining Limited.
While the 1987 Constitution prohibits foreign individuals and companies from exploiting the country’s mineral resources, this was allowed by the Mining Act of 1995, under a number of methods, including the FTAA.
However, the Constitution also mandates that citizens shall not lose their land, even for a public purpose, without payment of just compensation to them.
On Tuesday, OceanaGold’s wrecking crew demolished four more houses, to add to about 70 houses that were already destroyed since it began the clearing operations in December last year.
Many lot owners, however, complained that their houses were torn down even if they have not reached any final agreement with OceanaGold and have not been fully paid.
Ramoncito Gozar, OceanaGold vice president for communications and external affairs, said the company stopped negotiating with the Dupa members because the prices they were quoting for their land kept going up.
“Since our numerous attempts to come to a settlement with them have failed, we are now invoking our right to enter the lots and clear these of houses, pursuant to the rights granted to (the company) by the mining act,” he said.
Dupa sought Desama’s help following OceanaGold’s latest attempt to demolish clusters of about 200 houses at the foot of Dinkidi (pronounced ding-ki-dai) Hill, which sit directly on top of the mineral deposit that is estimated to contain 75,000 kilos and 350,000 tons of gold and copper.
Dupa members said they felt betrayed by the company.
“Kasla tayo la nagtaraken ti uleg. Kalpasan nga tinultulungantayo dayta nga kumpania nga makastrek ditoy ket isu metten ita mangalun-on kadatayo (We have brought up a serpent, which, after helping it to enter our village, is now the monster that’s here to devour us),” said Alfredo Banig, whose house was flattened while attending mass on Sunday.
Dupa sought Desama’s help following OceanaGold’s latest attempt to demolish clusters of about 200 houses at the foot of Dinkidi hill (pronounced ding-ki-dai), which sit directly on top of the mineral deposit that is estimated to contain 75,000 kilos and 350,000 tons of gold and copper, respectively.
Peter Duyapat, Desama president, said they were joining Dupa members in their cause, despite their past bitter dispute when they were put on opposing sides in the mining controversy.
“They now probably realize that we were right all along–that this company should not be trusted,” he said in the dialect.
Dupa members said negotiations crumbled when the company has refused their declared selling price of at least P1.2 million for a 400-sq. meter lot and a wooden house, as advised by their counsel.
However, the company, under its surface rights acquisition (SRA) program, has pegged the lot price to at least P200,000 per hectare, commonly based on prevailing market value. A house is commonly priced at P50,000.
“Agririda ket nga nangina ket ania ngay ngarud? Balitok ti karga toy daga di balitok met ti presiona (They complain about the price, but isn’t that natural? The land contains gold underneath so its price should be like gold also),” said Banig, a former town councilor.
Gilbert Catteg, who lost his house even if the company still owed him P10,000, questioned why the company, as the buyer, was dictating the price of their lands.
But according to Gozar, the company is working on tight deadline, and could no longer afford to be further delayed in the implementation of their project plan. OceanaGold aims to start production in early 2009.
He blamed “speculators” who tropped to the site in anticipation of higher prices for the land on Dinkidi hill. For the last two years, houses “sprouted like mushrooms”, even when these are not liveable, Gozar said.
The demolition team was destroying houses at times purposely when the owners are not around, the OceanaGold executive said, as a management strategy to avoid any confrontation. Others, he said, volunteered to vacate their houses after they were paid.
“We will try our best to carry out the dismantling of the houses in the most humane means possible, and to see to it that the needs of those who will be displaced will be taken care of,” he said.
In place of the supposed payments, the company has posted a bond of P600,000 with the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, which, Gozar said, should cover all damages that will be suffered by the villagers occupying the two-hectare lot, for their lost property.
Santiago City becoming ‘jueteng’ capital, says group
SANTIAGO CITY — Church officials and civil society groups on Saturday held a protest march here to start an all-out campaign against the illegal numbers game “jueteng” in Isabela.
Officials of the Good Governance Movement and Accountability (GGMA), a multi-sectoral movement, said they launched the protest action to prevent Santiago City from acquiring the tag as the country’s “jueteng capital.”
“The monthly take for jueteng in Santiago City alone has reached P22 million, which is by far the highest among the major cities that we have included in our study,” said Siegfried Balatan, GGMA president.
This figure, Balatan said, does not include monthly collections for the province’s second city, Cauayan, and the more or less 25 towns where jueteng is reported to be in full operation.
“Shall we just watch and let that our city retain this shameful title as the country’s jueteng capital simply because of the inaction of our government officials?” he asked.
The protest march was joined by leaders of Catholic, Protestant and Methodist churches and about 50 GGMA members from Isabela’s fourth district.
Balatan said they invited local officials in the fourth district, including Gov. Maria Gracia Cielo Padaca to join the march, but they declined due to previous commitments.
They marched around the city’s main commercial district, wielding placards that called for a stop to the illegal gambling operations here.
They assailed the supposed inaction and the “silence of provincial, city and town officials, allowing the open and rampant bet collection activities with draws held three times a day.”
As the protesters marched along city streets, residents by the roadsides showed skepticism if the GGMA campaign will make any dent at all on the illegal gambling campaign.
“(The protesters) should address their call to ‘jueteng’ lords and their protectors. They are staying in barangay centers, the city hall or town halls; they can easily find them there,” a store owner in Victory Norte said, hinting the alleged involvement of elected government officials in the proliferation of the illegal numbers game here.
This writer tried but failed to reach Padaca for comment on Saturday. Gloria Cecilia Franco, her executive assistant, said the governor was in Metro Manila for an official trip.
Mayor Amelita Navarro, however, lamented that she did not receive an invitation to the event.
“They should have called or invited me so that I could join them so the jueteng issue will be put to rest,” said Navarro, who was in Tarlac on Saturday.
In an earlier interview, Navarro said she would leave the job of stopping jueteng to the police. “That is their [responsibility], so I will give them a blanket authority [to stop jueteng],” she said.
She said the city government has initiated livelihood projects to wean jueteng bet takers from the illegal activity but many of them return to the trade.
Chief Supt. Ameto Gil Tolentino, Cagayan Valley police director, said police continue their campaign against jueteng and other forms of illegal gambling not only in Isabela, but also in the region.
“(On Friday), 10 persons were apprehended by combined police units in Santiago. A week or two earlier, several (anti-jueteng) operations were launched in Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and Cagayan,” he said.
Santiago Councilor Romeo de la Cruz blamed the failure of government to set aside public funds to provide jobs for residents who are forced into illegal gambling.
“If only the billions and even trillions [of pesos] of government money were spent to create jobs for our people, then bet collectors would not have to engage in illegal gambling, while bettors would not have to pin their hopes on winning,” he said.
Ousted N. Vizcaya police director sues PNP chief
BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya–The ousted provincial police director of this province has sued his Police Dir. Gen. Avelino Razon Jr. and his regional director for alleged abuse they committed in relieving him from his post here three weeks ago.
Senior Supt. Segundo Duran has joined Gov. Luisa Cuaresma in a petition asking the regional trial court here to nullify his relief order, saying the PNP brass abused their authority when they removed him from his post without consulting the governor.
“The order issued by respondents in relieving Duran is a patent, gross and crystalline grave abuse of discretion…which is a clear contravention of the well-enshrined prerogative of (Cuaresma) as governor of the province,” the amended petition read in part.
The petition was referring to Razon, and Chief Supt. Ameto Tolentino, police director for Cagayan Valley region, who ordered Duran’s removal as provincial director.
On Monday, lawyers for Cuaresma and Duran again asked the court to block the enforcement of the police official’s relief order dated Jan. 16, through a seven-page amendment to a complaint earlier filed by Cuaresma.
In the original petition, the governor sought the court’s intervention to block the relief of Duran, saying she was not consulted on the matter.
Citing a memorandum circular issued by the National Police Commission in 2001 which states that “the Chief PNP, by himself or through the Regional Director himself may relieve for a cause a provincial director…upon consultation with the provincial governor.”
The court, however, on Tuesday denied the plea for a second temporary restraining order.
“The alleged new issues do not, to the mind of the court, present sufficient issued that would show a clear legal right of the petitioners to the issuance of a restraining order. The theory presented by the amended petition is similar to that which was brought to this court via the original petition,” said Judge Rogelio Corpuz in his order.
In a phone interview, Tolentino said they were ready to face the charges.
He maintained that Duran’s relief was for a cause, and that consulting the governor on the matter is merely discretionary on the part of the PNP.
“That same day, I went to the governor to personally deliver her copy of the relief order, and told her the reasons why Duran was being relieved. Their claim that Duran’s relief without a cause is untrue; that does not happen and it can never happen in the PNP,” he said.
He, however, declined to reveal in the meantime the reasons for Duran’s removal from office.
“It would not have come to this if only (Duran) obeyed the order. As much as possible, we did not want to make a controversy out of it, but now that he seems to be fighting it out, in due time we will be constrained to make public why he was relieved,” he said.
PNP sources said possible reasons could be the operation of illegal numbers game in the province, and the supposed disgruntlement of a number of police officers over the manner by which Duran managed the province’s police force.
Tuesday’s denial of the plea for a second TRO is the third setback for Cuaresma, whose petition, after having been granted a 72-hour TRO on Jan. 16., failed to have it extended for 20 days. Then, a subsequent motion for reconsideration was likewise denied by the court.
In denying Cuaresma’s motion, the court debunked her contention that the governor’s power granted by law to appoint a provincial police director requires that she must be consulted prior to the relief of the police official.
Quoting the law, the court said that although governors and mayors are granted the power to select the police chief from at least three candidates, the power to transfer, reassign or detail PNP personnel is a “command prerogative”.
“An incumbent provincial director may be removed, transferred or re-assigned without the approval of the governor. While prior consultation with the governor in such personnel action is desirable and suggested to enhance mutual harmony and coordination, such consultation is not mandatory but mere discretionary,” it said.
Police sources, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Duran was already willing to leave the province, but the lady governor would not let him go.
“Being a good soldier, he really wants to obey orders, but he cannot say no to the governor who wants him to stay,” the source said.
Duran could not be reached for comment on Thursday, as he was reportedly in Metro Manila. But his counsel, lawyer Angelito Baclig, said they were readying another motion for reconsideration.
