NAGA CITY – A Chinese mining company operating in Camarines Norte has declared losses amounting to 4 million pesos after communist rebels burned heavy equipment and forcibly took the firearms of its security guards.
According to reports made available during the weekend, the rebels attacked a mining site in barangay Napaod, Labo, Camarines Norte and burned two dump trucks and two pay loaders owned by BUHAY-TAP Mining International, a company registered in the People’s Republic of China.
This was an incidental revelation made public by Camarines Norte Philippine National Police (PNP) Provincial director, Police Senior Supt. Moises Cudal Pagaduan during a weekend PNP-Army dialog with civil society groups in Bicol aimed to discuss safeguards for the May 2013 polls.
Pagaduan said cases of robbery and arson have been filed against identified NPA personalities who led about 70 communist rebels in attacking the mining firm.
The Bicol-National Democratic Front (NDF) through spokesman “Greg Bañares” owns up the raid on the mining company. “…the attack was meant to punish the foreign mining firm of gross environmental abuse that has placed the lives of people at risk,” the NDF statement says.
A joint force of the PNP and the army’s 49th Infantry Battalion are now securing the areas of operation of the mining company in barangays Napaod and Binit.
According to earlier reports, the Chinese mining company is using a mechanized mining method where land-materials are scraped of all mineralized content, which are all shipped to China. The company’s processing facility located in a three hectare compound is supervised by Chinese engineers.
The company employs over twenty security guards and fifty heavy equipment operators, drivers and crew. But the 1,500 residents of barangays Napaod and neighboring localities of Binit and Matanlang in Labo, Camarines Norte see the harm caused by the company’s open-pit mining practice far outweighing whatever employment benefits the mining firm gives to the locality. (SONNY SALES)