MANILA, Philippines – Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. yesterday asked Malacañang to stop a government plan to allow China’s ZTE Corp. to operate a mining concession in the gold-rich Mount Diwalwal in Mindanao.
Pimentel expressed apprehension that the Arroyo government would be obliged to allow ZTE to engage in mining operations in Diwalwal to compensate for the cancellation of the national broadband network (NBN) deal between the government and ZTE after grave anomalies were uncovered, including alleged overpricing and bribery by the Chinese telecommunications firm of Filipino officials to bag the NBN project.
Pimentel stressed the entry of foreign investors in the Diwalwal mining areas was uncalled for since Filipinos had proven their capability to explore, develop and operate these areas for the benefit of the greatest number of people.
Pimentel said the government should refrain from making decisions that would threaten the interest and livelihood of big or small Filipino miners and spark social discontent in the politically volatile region.
“The news that ZTE will now be a major player in the Diwalwal mining area is a terrible blow to small miners, including lumads and prior locators,” said Pimentel, who hails from Mindanao and is the principal author of the Small Scale Mining Act of the Philippines.
“Aside from complicating matters, it may even cause bloodshed,” he warned.
The proposed mining operations of ZTE International Investment Ltd. – the investment arm of ZTE International – was supposedly part of long-term Chinese investments in the Philippines worth $32 billion that had been agreed upon by the two governments.
Pimentel said the reported impending entry of ZTE as a major player in the Mount Diwalwal gold rush area had caused restiveness among various stakeholders there, particularly the small scale miners who fear that their mining rights were being undermined by competition from big companies favored by the government, including foreign ones.
The possible grant of a mining concession to ZTE was first revealed by Trade Secretary Peter Favila during his testimony before the Senate on the aborted $329-million NBN deal last March 11.
Favila informed the joint Senate investigating committees that on July 12, 2006, he signed in behalf of the Philippine government a memorandum of understanding with ZTE International Investment Ltd. involving the exploration, development and operation of mining areas in Diwalwal and Davao and the establishment of an information technology school and an economic zone in Davao.
Further giving credence to the administration’s plan to implement its mining venture agreement with China in Diwalwal was a June 23, 2006 ruling of a division of the Supreme Court that cancelled all mining rights and operations in the Diwalwal gold rush area.
The mining area covered by the court ruling is the same one covered by the 2006 memorandum of agreement signed by China and the Philippines.
The court ruling is being disputed by the Mindanao Gold Mining Corp. through a petition that the SC is scheduled to take up in full session in Baguio City.