Strengths enumerated in ‘weak’ Garcia case

GOTCHA 

By Jarius Bondoc 

The Philippine Star

Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz went straight to the point in reacting to Monday’s news from the Sandiganbayan. “In the first place, the Second Division did not approve the plea bargain of General Carlos Garcia,” he clarified. “It merely reiterated its approval, made on May 4, 2010, on condition that Garcia surrender P135 million in stolen wealth. It just says now that he has complied.”

Cadiz laid the predicate to the first of many glaring inconsistencies in the contentious plea deal. The P135 million is more than double the P50-million threshold to constitute the heinous crime of plunder. Garcia had offered to return such plunder-size loot as far back as February 2010. So how can Justices Edilberto G. Sandoval, Teresita V. Diaz-Baldoz, and Samuel R. Martires now call the case against him weak?

Cadiz pointed out other discrepancies, which he will raise in a motion for reconsideration:

• The justices ignored the testimony of Audit Commissioner Heidi Mendoza that at least P50 million in Armed Forces funds went missing. As a state auditor seconded to the Ombudsman’s office, Mendoza in 2005 had scoured the military files for documentary proof of plunder. Among the papers she found was Garcia’s diversion into a fictitious budget item of P200 million in reimbursements from the United Nations. The money was deposited in two accounts — one for P150 million, the other for P50 million — in a private bank in Makati instead of the official government depository in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City. The P50-million chunk eventually was transferred to another branch, from where it vanished. Still, the justices belittled the direct testimony in 2007-2008 by an expert prosecution witness. They said that Mendoza had been tasked to do a financial audit, but conducted instead a fraud audit, and so was incredible.

When the plea bargain was announced in open court on December 16, 2010, former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo raised a howl. Allegedly the special prosecutors had mistreated Mendoza. From records, they first made her testify eight times as star witness. Then they called in four of Garcia’s former subordinates at the Armed Forces Finance Center to contradict her testimonies. Cadiz said these witnesses should have been declared hostile and subjected to cross examination, but weren’t. Senator Franklin Drilon said the state should not be bound by the incompetence of its agents.

• The justices also junked their own earlier ruling that spousal privilege did not apply to Garcia, Cadiz said. This is in relation to the two sworn statements that Garcia’s wife Clarita had filed with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in early 2004. When ICE agents seized $100,000 in smuggled cash from Garcia’s two sons at the San Francisco airport in December 2003, Clarita became frantic. She typed and handwrote explanations of how she and her husband came to own the money. Supposedly they separately received travel and shopping money from foreign military suppliers whenever Garcia inspected factories abroad, approved the contracts, certified the products and released the payments. Garcia also routinely accepted big cash gifts from Filipino contractors. ICE Agent Matthew van Dyke attested to the authenticity of Clarita’s affidavits. When Garcia filed for bail in 2009, the issue of a person testifying against a spouse was discussed. Two of the three justices, Diaz-Baldoz and Martires, said it did not apply since Garcia was not charged with any offense in the US or the Philippines at the time Clarita made the affidavits. Two other justices were called in: one sided with Diaz-Baldoz and Martires, the other with Sandoval; the earlier ruling was carried. In that 3-2 decision, the justices directed Garcia to start presenting his defense because the evidence as rested by the prosecution was strong enough to convict him. Last Monday, Cadiz said, the three original justices reversed the ruling.

• Cadiz also pointed out inconsistencies in dates. On March 16, 2010, then-Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, her deputies and special prosecutors submitted to the Sandiganbayan a proposed plea bargain with Garcia, on grounds that their case was weak. Three days later on March 19, 2010, the same signatories opposed Garcia’s petition for bail, on grounds that their case was strong. Last December 16, 2010, again the same signatories said the case was weak, so they favored the plea deal.

Drilon hinted at an orchestrated acquittal of Garcia. He recalled having suggested to Gutierrez during recent Senate hearings to withdraw their plea bargain from the Sandiganbayan. This was in light of new evidence from three witnesses. Anti-Money Laundering Council executive director Vicente Aquino had sworn that Garcia was able to withdraw P58 million from several bank accounts before the courts could order an asset freeze. Colonels George Rabusa (retired) and Antonio Ramon Lim (active), Garcia’s budget officer and assistant, respectively, detailed before the senators the billion-peso fund diversions into the pockets of selected generals. Common sense dictated that they be presented as well before the Sandiganbayan Second Division. Up to her resignation last Friday, May 6, Gutierrez and company did no such thing.

Drilon said that what the special prosecutors did was manifest before the division that the Senate, not them, had reservations about the plea deal. The word going around was that if they didn’t free Garcia, he would squeal on his principals in the past administration, Drilon added.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com

A lament, so soon

AT GROUND LEVEL
By Satur C. Ocampo
The Philippine Star

“Cases of extrajudicial killings need to be solved, not just identify the perpetrators but have them captured and sent to jail.”

This was Noynoy Aquino’s statement in a meeting with European Union ambassadors just a few weeks before being elected president last year.

One would have expected, or at least hoped, that under President Aquino’s watch, extrajudicial killings (EJK) and enforced disappearances (ED) which totaled 1,412 documented cases under Gloria Arroyo’s nine-year regime, and drew international condemnation mainly in Europe and in the United Nations would have become nightmares of the past.

Sadly, people today continue to be killed and disappear (although relatively not as many and as frequently as before).

In his first state-of-the-nation address on July 26, President Aquino appeared set to make good on his statement (March 31, 2010) quoted above. Three of the six EJK cases that happened in the first three weeks of his administration had been solved, he said, and the other three cases would be solved soon.

Since then, however, he hasn’t spoken again on the matter. Not one of the three supposedly solved EJK cases he cited has resulted in the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators. The first of the three was the killing on July 5 in Kalibo, Aklan, of Councilor Fernando Baldomero, Bayan Muna provincial chair who won reelection under the Liberal Party banner.

Still there has been one positive turn, which – trying not to be “negative” all the time I wrote about in this column on October 2, 2010.

This was the filing of a murder charge against two army soldiers who were arrested by the Kabangkalan police on board a motorcycle shortly after they allegedly shot dead Benjamin Bayles, a parish worker of the Philippine Independent Church and Bayan Muna coordinator, along the highway in Himamaylan City on June 4, 2010.

The murder charge was filed after PIC Bishop Filomeno Ang of Negros Occidental wrote to President Aquino disclosing his detailed findings, including the true identities of the soldiers and the alleged attempts of their commanding officer, Col. Ricardo Bayhon, to cover up their involvement in the crime.

I have been monitoring this case as a breakthrough in the struggle to end impunity on extrajudicial killings. The latest hearing at the Himamaylan regional trial court, which began on October 12, 2010, was last March 30. Two prosecution witnesses have been presented, one already cross-examined. The next hearing will be on June 9, when the two handguns allegedly used in the murder, still held by the PNP Region 6 crime laboratory, are expected to be presented as evidence.

When I attended the pre-trial hearing in October, the two accused — Private 1st Class Reygine Laus and PFC Ronnie Caurino — were presented in court with their faces covered, save for their eyes. As I looked intently at them, they evaded eye contact with me. During the hearing last March 23, before the first prosecution witness testified, Judge Nilo M. Sarsaba ordered the accused to remove their “masks” as had been asked earlier by the private prosecutors from the Public Interest Law Center and National Union of People’s Lawyers.

With the filing last week of criminal charges against retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. and other military officers on the enforced disappearances of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno in 2006, the human rights community hopes that more cases will follow in court. And that the perpetrators will be successfully prosecuted and sent to jail.

In the first nine months of the P-Noy government, the human rights alliance Karapatan has already documented 45 murders and five abductions of political activists.

Last month two more cases were reported on two successive days, on April 11 and 12, one of them in Luzon and the other in Mindanao. The first murder victim was Kenneth Reyes, 28, chair of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Batangas; the second was Santos V. Manrique, 52, chair of a coalition of people’s organizations defending the environment, land rights, and food security in the mining town of Pantukan in Compostela Valley.

In P-Noy’s first six months in office there were 31 such killings and four disappearances, twice more than the 18 EJKs and one ED in the last six months of Gloria Arroyo’s term. Under Arroyo’s counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, political activists were lumped together with those engaged in armed struggle as “enemies of the state” targeted for physical elimination.

Instead of ending it at once, P-Noy’s choice was to extend Oplan Bantay Laya until December 31, 2010; the killings and disappearances increased. On January 1 his administration began implementing its own Internal Peace and Security Plan called “Oplan Bayanihan”; and 16 more activists were killed.

No wonder Karapatan laments: “Why is it difficult to ascertain when Oplan Bantay Laya ends and Oplan Bayanihan begins? Is it because one is no different from the other, except for different names and the latter’s use of deceptive words like ‘respectful of human rights,’ ‘development-oriented activities,’ and ‘peace’?”

P-Noy must prove there is a difference between the two “oplans.” How? Stop the killings and disappearances.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=685864&publicationSubCategoryId=64

Letting foreign vessels pass thru Phl waters

GOTCHA
By Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star

Pending in the Senate and House of Reps are parallel bills to delineate the country’s “archipelagic sea-lanes.” These are routes through or over which foreign sea and aircraft may pass, in crossing Philippine territorial waters or air space. The sea-lanes are to bolster the Philippine assertion as an “archipelagic state” under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As an archipelagic state, the country in theory can claim wider territorial waters, thus more undersea resources and farther exclusive economic zone. Of course, it has to have scientific bases, such as a continental shelf, which the government presently is mapping. Still, the UNCLOS states that archipelagic states must assign paths for foreign vessels safely to cut through or fly over. It’s a quid pro quo. Strategists think that backing the country’s listing as an archipelagic state, with proper archipelagic sea-lanes (ASLs) and geological studies, fortifies as well the Philippine claim over the Kalayaan Island Group in the Spratlys.

The three ASLs proposed in the bills are also the air routes:

• Lane 1, cutting east west, connects the Pacific Ocean to the South China Sea. It passes through the Balintang Channel, between the Batanes and Babuyan islands, in the Luzon Strait north of the mainland.

• Lane 2 also cuts east west to link the Pacific Ocean to the South China Sea. It traverses the Surigao Strait, Bohol Sea and Sulu Sea, onto the Nasubata Channel and Balabac Strait in southern Palawan.

• Lane 3, cutting north south, hooks up the South Chine Sea to the Celebes Sea. It crosses the Mindoro Strait, eastern Sulu Sea, and Basilan Strait.

Letting outsiders pass through one’s preserve is always tricky. The ASL bills provide for a slew of usage rules. Foreign sea and aircraft must pass as quickly as possible, in normal mode purposely for continuous transit. They may not deviate more than 25 nautical miles on either side, or navigate closer to coast than 10 percent of the distance between the nearest island points bordering the ASLs. They must refrain from threat or use of force against Philippine sovereignty. No war games by military vessels. Except in force majeure, disaster or rescue, sea and aircraft may not land on Philippine territory or drop anchor. No covert transmissions, interfering with telecommunications, or direct contact with unauthorized persons or groups in the Philippines.

Foreign crews may not fish while in transit; fishing vessels must stow gear in the hold. No unloading of any person, goods or currency. They must observe international regulations and practices on shipping safety, and comply with traffic separation schemes. They shall not disturb or damage navigational facilities, submarine cables or pipes, or sail within 500 meters of natural resource fields. Foreign aircraft must follow flight safety rules, and at all times monitor the assigned radio frequency. The sea or aircraft may not discharge oil, waste, noxious and pollutive substance. The person or group legally responsible for ship or air cargo shall be liable for any Philippine loss or damage caused by the passing craft. If by a military vessel, the flag State shall be liable.

* * *

Dr. Jay Batongbacal cautions lawmakers against rushing the bills. A specialist in international marine environment law and the UNCLOS, he says the proposed ASLs hew perilously too close to marine preserves. Lanes 2 and 3 straddle Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea. The Unesco has declared the 130,000-hectare natural park a World Heritage Site for its marine biodiversity. Most of Southeast Asia’s fish catch spawn there.

In addition, Lane 3 traverses Apo Reef in the waters of Mindoro Occidental. The 34,000-hectare national park is the world’s second and the country’s largest contiguous coral system. Lane 3 also slices close to Verde Island Passage, between Batangas and Mindoro, where thrives the most diverse marine life in Southeast Asia.

The safety and security, ecological and economic rules are fine, Batongbacal says. But the bills will become a dead-letter law unless the Philippine Navy and Coast Guard are strengthened first. With the military and transport-safety arms undermanned and ill equipped, they will be unable to enforce the restrictions. Their hands are full repelling incursions by foreign military and poaching boats, and inspecting domestic ships. To abruptly allow foreign vessels to pass through and over the ASLs would burden them even more. Local fishing grounds, like Surigao Strait, Bohol Sea and Nasubata Channel, will be disturbed.

* * *

Remember such 1970s “Maski-Pops” disco tunes as Bongga Ka ‘Day and Annie Batungbakal? Or courtship songs like Pers Lab and Ikaw ang Miss Universe ng Buhay Ko? They made the Hotdog band a Pinoy pop-rock legend. The group released over three-dozen singles, all achieving gold and platinum status. The hits, including Beh Buti Nga, Bitin sa Iyo, Langit na Naman, O Lumapit Ka, and that ode to the capital Manila, will be featured in the Hotdog’s one-night-only reunion show on Monday, May 16, at the Dusit Thani ‘s grand ballroom.

Bandleaders Rene Garcia (lead guitar, vocals) and Dennis Garcia will be joined by guest performer Joey Abando from The Boyfriends. Plus, session musicians Benjie Santos, Carlo Gaa, Roy Marinduque, and Roy Sadicon.

Tickets, available at the Dusit Thani concierge, and thru telephones (02) 8866186, (0915) 3598228, or (0921) 2931784, include dinner, drinks and all-night dancing. Special barkada rates offered.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?publicationSubCategoryId=64&articleId=684074

No sympathy for Merci

To Take A Stand 

By Oscar P. Lagman, Jr.

BusinessWorld

The resignation statement of the ombudsman would have drawn credulity, sympathy, and esteem had it been made by a brilliant, erudite but humble and deferential person. But because the statement was made by Ms. Merceditas Gutierrez, it drew mockery, pity, and greater contempt.

The statement must have been prepared by one of her obsequious underlings who just put words in her mouth without regard to Ms. Gutierrez’s personality, language, and public image. To paraphrase Mike Defensor’s monumental declaration after studying the “Hello Garci” tapes, that was Ombudsman Gutierrez’s voice but she was not the one speaking.

She started her statement by thanking the President for graciously accommodating her on very short notice when she went to see him to tender her resignation. It was as if the President was clueless as to who she is. The President was fully aware of who she is and what she represented — a huge stumbling block — in his quest to bring corrupt public officials to justice.

When the 2010 election results began to indicate a victory by the presidential candidate whose election campaign was anchored on bringing GMA to justice, there were already calls from the advisers of the presumed president-elect for Ms. Gutierrez to resign. Were it not for the position’s fixed term, Ms. Gutierrez would have been summarily dismissed hours after PNoy was sworn in as president. That was therefore no gracious accommodation accorded her on April 29. Her resignation letter was long overdue. Personal delivery of it was totally unnecessary.

“I have always been guided by the precepts that the public and moral responsibilities of public officials transcend all other considerations,” said she. The public’s perception is precisely that having been appointed by Gloria Arroyo, she owed allegiance to her and not to the Filipino people and the Constitution. People strongly believe that she ignored her public responsibilities in consideration of her patrons Gloria Arroyo and her husband. She is accused of deliberately sleeping on the Fertilizer Fund scam and the malodorous NBN-ZTE deal to shield them from criminal charges. It is alleged that the Fertilizer Fund was used for GMA’s presidential bid in 2004 while it is bruited about that the NBN-ZTE deal was really the First Gentleman’s scheme.

She absolved the Comelec officials involved in the P1.3-billion Mega-Pacific contract nullified by the Supreme Court of all administrative and criminal liabilities because they were the ones who purportedly manipulate elections to favor GMA and her minions. She sat on the case of the Euro generals because they are the ones who suppressed public demonstrations against the Arroyo administration.

She said her unblemished record in public service is the greatest and lasting legacy that she can leave her family, her children, and her children’s children. On the contrary she is referred to as only the second public official to be impeached by the House of Representatives, President Estrada being the first.

Only 79 congressman or 33% of the members of the House signed the resolution to impeach Erap. Out of 285 members of the House, 212, or 74%, voted to impeach Ombudsman Gutierrez. Many of those were former toadies of GMA in Congress. That is the legacy she leaves behind.

She said that as a government official, she must place first and foremost the interests of the nation, the Office of the Ombudsman, and as a mother and wife, her family. “The impeachment proceedings have consumed not only the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but the Chief Executive of the land as well. At a time when the present administration is in its infancy and beset with more urgent problems, the last thing that the nation needs is for the House and the Senate to be embroiled in a long-drawn-out impeachment proceeding against a single public official,” she declared.

If those were her true sentiments, she would have resigned in July last year, when she was strongly urged to do so, instead of distracting PNoy and tying up the Lower House of Congress and the Supreme Court in her vain attempt to vindicate herself. Her attempt at heroics comes too late in the day.

She herself said she was firm and resolute to participate in the impeachment trial before the Senate. Maybe she was assured by her patron of the favorable votes of Senators Lapid, Revilla, Zubiri, Sotto, Santiago, and Marcos (all four Arroyos signed the House resolution urging PNoy to allow the burial of President Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani), but her advisers must have pointed at the handwriting of 212 congressmen on the wall.

I cannot let Sen. Santiago’s nomination of Gilbert Teodoro for ombudsman go by without comment. It will be recalled that when Teodoro was asked during the presidential campaign if he would push for the prosecution of GMA if he were elected, he said he would not go against a president who put her trust and confidence in him, young though he was, when she appointed him secretary of Defense. Did Sen. Santiago think of PNoy as brain-damaged?

* * * *

Today is supposed to be Gus Lagman’s turn at this column. As he has become a public official, it has become inappropriate for him to render his opinion on national issues publicly.

When he was asked to join the pool of writers of this column, he declined at first. But then he realized he could use the column as a medium for his advocacies. Indeed, his first articles were on our electoral system and the Comelec.

We in Manindigan!, the cause-oriented group that is behind this column, join other civil society groups in hailing our colleague’s appointment as election commissioner. We expect great reforms in our electoral system from hereon.

By the way, Gus is blocking the resolution signed and promulgated by the Comelec authorizing the chairman to sign a contract with Smartmatic-TIM for the purchase of: hardware and software (P130.9 million), election and stress test consumables (P50.4 million), technology-related services (P756.0 million), and ballot boxes and non-technology-related services for a few hunded million pesos more. He says the price is too high to pay for an election where each voter only writes five names chosen from a very short list of maybe a dozen candidates. Counting the votes manually will only take an hour or two.

He also said that the Comelec’s technology consultant has admitted that Smartmatic is still fixing defects in the system. He believes Smartmatic-TIM has to first demonstrate that the defects have already been fixed before the Comelec should even consider purchasing the system.

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Opinion&title=No-sympathy-for-Merci&id=30994

Who are you calling ‘lazy’?

Lowdown
Jojo A. Robles
Manila Standard Today

The most strident defense against the allegations of laziness hurled against President Noynoy Aquino, apart from the one he himself put up, was made not by any denizen of the Palace propaganda group but by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. But those who think that the nomination of De Lima to be Aquino’s Ombudsman is related to her unexpected apologia don’t have an iota of proof—and the justice chief has not been tapped for the overfilled position of Palace spokesman, either.

But it’s still interesting to listen to De Lima defend her boss, the same one whom she hinted that she wanted to leave after he mostly ignored her recommendations in relation to the Rizal Park hostage fiasco last year. According to De Lima, she is witness to how hardworking Aquino really is— how he gets angry when he isn’t briefed properly, how he asks so many questions that shows he’s thought long and hard about a subject, how he gives detailed instructions on how to government must act in particular cases.

Aquino’s own defense, aimed at two critical columnists, was less convincing. As proof, he explained to an assembly of businessmen that he spoke to last week that he can’t be lazy because he had to get up at 5:30 a.m. on that day to attend two wakes.

Imagine that: two wakes. Perhaps De Lima really needs to head up that worthless Communications Group, after all, instead of becoming Ombudsman.

Still, selling the idea of Aquino as a hands-on, hardworking Chief Executive who “burns the midnight oil,” as he says, will always be tough. For starters, nowhere in his resume is there any evidence that he worked hard at any point during his laid-back adult life.

And if becoming President has, in the span of a single year, transformed him into a workaholic, then perhaps that must be the really good news that Palace propagandists are looking to disseminate to the media. Except that we don’t really see him working, really.

The only evidence we have of Aquino’s presence has been confined to reading speeches, attending wakes and sightings of him in places like the hip Republiq bar at Pasay City’s Resorts World hotel. And when he buys a Porsche and publicly pines for the days when he could go out on dates and munch down on fast food anytime he wanted, it’s hard to imagine Aquino being so busy attending to weighty matters of state that he doesn’t even have time for some R-and-R.

Furthermore, when we keep hearing stories about how hundreds of appointment papers remain unattended to for months on Aquino’s desk, how promised projects take so long to get off the drawing board and how so much official time and resources are spent going after political enemies, we worry that not enough presidential brainwork is being employed to get really important things done. That’s why all this talk of “laziness” persists.

Still, if De Lima truly wants to avoid the potentially career-killing job of being Aquino’s Ombudsman, she should seriously consider replacing the entire CommGroup and continue to give us insights on the President’s industry. She’s so much more believable than Aquino himself.

* * *

Speaking of disinformation, we’ve been told that a lot of it is being directed lately at the Rio Tuba mining operation and its “partner,” the Coral Bay processing plant, both in Palawan. To hear the anti-mining lobby tell it, however, mining in the province is about to denude the entire province and extend to the Tubbataha Reef and the Underground River.

Apart from the misdirected claims of wholesale environmental degradation (which are really the result of slash-and-burn clearing and “small-scale,” largely unregulated mining and quarrying), the Rio Tuba nickel mine and its processing plant are also being blamed for not uplifting the economic welfare of the people of the town of Bataraza, where the mine is located. Nothing, however, can be farther from the truth.

Bataraza’s population has grown to about 58,000 today from just 15,510 in 1975 when mining first started there. In the meantime, from being a poor town in the middle of nowhere, Bataraza has been transformed into a first-class municipality by mining activities that generate revenues and jobs for communities inside and near the mine sites.

Rio Tuba and Coral Bay have been giving back to its host community P60 million a year under the required Social Development Management Plan of the Mining Act of 1995. Schools both for elementary and high school levels, as well as a hospital, were built using the SMDP, providing free education to 1,250 students and serving 2,000 patients per year for free.

In collaboration with the Gawad Kalinga, 200 housing units thus far have been constructed and given out to indigenous people in the area. And like all large-scale mining operations, Rio Tuba and Coral Bay cannot use old growth or virgin forests, proclaimed watershed forest reserves, mangroves, national parks and other areas expressly prohibited under the National Integrated Protected Area System of Republic Act No. 7986 and other laws.

While it is always convenient for supposed environmental activists to lump all kinds of mining in one group, what cannot be denied is that small-scale mining, which gets permits from local government units that do not have the expertise or resources to oversee the safety of residents and environmental impact, is really the culprit. The recent Compostella Valley landslide is the current poster child of small-scale mining, not the big and heavily-regulated mining operations like Rio Tuba/Coral Bay.

* * *

The hysterical assumption also being propagated is that the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development is opening the province to over a hundred large-scale mining operations. This has no basis in reality as of the over 100 mining applications in Palawan, only about one or two can be expected to be approved.

PCSD, out of the many mining applications, only approved two in 2006, four in 2007, five in 2008, none in 2009 and three in 2010. In those five years, the total area that has been approved for mining (a lot of it not yet being mined) is approximately 19,000 hectares or just 1.3 percent of the 1.4 million total land area of the province.

Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp. itself only has a mining claim of 5,265 hectares, of which 353 hectares are currently being operated. The first nickel deposits were discovered in 1967 and up to now the only land being mined covers 126 hectares.

But we’ve been told that the attacks on Rio Tuba are obviously intended to block other mining applications in Palawan, the largest province in the country whose land area has long been declared by government to be suitable for mixed use, whether for tourism, agriculture or mining and mineral processing. Why the anti-mining groups want to keep a proven revenue-generator for both government and the private sector under the strict and overly protective guidelines of the Mining Act for large-scale mines, only they can really explain.

But we’ve long been of the opinion that the trillions of pesos to be gained from a thriving mining industry, as long as the government continues to keep a tight watch on the stringent rules it has set, will be the engine of Philippine progress. Responsible mining can be our key to progress, if some misguided sectors will only allow it.

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideOpinion.htm?f=2011/may/13/jojorobles.isx&d=2011/may/13