BIR, Customs asked: Probe Liberal Party men’s mine

The taxman is being asked to investigate multimillion-peso arrears of a nickel mine controversially linked to the former ruling Liberal Party.

SR Metals Inc. (SRMI) is alleged to have skirted taxes and export tariffs on ore taken starting 2006 from Tubay, Agusan del Norte.

The Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has verified the ore extraction volumes. The supposed non-payments were referred April to the Bureaus of Internal Revenue and of Customs.

SRMI’s owners are erstwhile LP financier Eric Gutierrez and spokesman Rep. Edgar Erice (Caloocan City). Gutierrez reportedly helped bankroll the presidential campaign of Noynoy Aquino in 2010 and of Mar Roxas in 2016.

In a letter to BIR chief Caesar Dulay, DENR Usec. Analiza Rebuelta-Teh urged a probe of SRMI’s “failure to disclose and comply fully with its tax obligations.” Writing separately to Customs head Isidro Lapeña, she pointed to possible under-declaration of ore exports to China. Attached were ore shipment clearances issued by Agusan provincial Gov. Erlpe John Amante.

Rebuelta-Teh, in charge of climate change and mining concerns, acted in behalf of DENR Sec. Roy Cimatu. The latter had received from Tubay mine licensee Rodney Basiana a complaint that SRMI duped him. Basiana alleged that he assigned to SRMI in 2005 his Mineral Production Sharing Agreement, in exchange for five percent of gross proceeds. He initially received P4 million, then no more except an SRMI lawsuit to rescind the deal. Basiana said Erice represented SRMI, San R Mining Construction Corp. and Galeo Equipment Mining Co. Purportedly the companies withheld not only his revenue shares but also taxes and tariffs on the mineral production.

SRMI operated as a small-scale mine, authorized to extract only up to 50,000 tons of ore per year. Yet on its first year alone starting 2006, it reportedly dug up more than triple the limit. SRMI raked in P2.8 billion, Basiana alleged. It continued over-extracting by reinterpreting the legal limit as 50,000 tons of “processed” nickel. In the next eight years it made P28 billion in ore exports to China, Basiana added.

DENR’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau detected the over-extractions. SRMI and affiliates had brought in an array of excavators, bulldozers, dump trucks, and barges to level the mountains and ship out the ore. Breached were the capitalization limit and the use of only pick axes, shovels, and wheelbarrows, under the People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991. The destructive mining marred Agusan’s forests, rivers, and seaside. Then-DENR Sec. Angelo Reyes ordered the mine closed. Yet he was defied. SRMI elevated the issue to the Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court, losing both times. The latter upheld in 2014 the legality of Reyes’ order (GR No. 179669).

Separately a plunder rap was filed against SRMI’s owners in 2006. But the Ombudsman shelved it then, as the justice department opined that SRMI’s reinterpretation of the 50,000 tons as “processed” ore was right. The SC verdict effectively nullified that issuance.

By then, SRMI had leveled up to a large-scale mine. Locals cried that it was due to influence with Malacañang. Before stepping down in 2016 Aquino awarded SRMI the presidential trophy as environment-friendly mine.

 Rebuelta-Teh indicated that the SC ruling was final. As well, the DENR interpretation of the 50,000 tons as “raw” ore has been upheld. Only the tax and tariff angles remain unresolved.

SRMI’s initial small-scale status was a ruse, Basiana alleged. To pull it off, the firm used a copy of an official receipt for P5,520 that he had paid in 1997 to register his mining claim. SRMI has received two more presidential awards for environment-friendliness as a large-scale mine in Nov. 2016 and Dec. 2017.

President Rody Duterte’s late mother hailed from Tubay town. In a speech early in his term before ex-law schoolmates, he warned Gutierrez not to destroy Agusan’s environs.

* * *

A recent department order by Transport Sec. Art Tugade should clear up the confusion over ride-hailing services. The DO reiterates the authority of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to set rules and fares of public transports. Such authority is stated in a Commonwealth Act and in a Cory Aquino executive order.

Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles calls the order a victory. He has exposed three secret charges of Grab Philippines since June 2017. These are: P2-per-minute travel time rate, P80-base or minimum rate for sedans, and P125-base for higher-end vehicles. All were in breach of Grab fares that LTFRB publicly set in Dec. 2016. He wants Grab to refund customers and be fined hundreds of billions of pesos.

Grab interprets Tugade’s order inversely, though. Supposedly it proves that the secret rates were legit under a May 2015 order by then-Sec. Joseph Abaya. That older order let ride-hailing or transport network companies set their own rates, subject to mere LTFRB oversight. Only now may LTFRB impose rules and fares. Grab wants Nograles to apologize to drivers for LTFRB’s suspension of the P2-per-minute, and to riders for reduction in rides.

If Grab is unfettered by LTFRB, Nograles retorts, then why did it not protest the fares that the agency set in Dec. 2017? Too, why did it file for rate increases in Jan. 2018? Grab cannot obey and disobey the law at its convenience, he says.

* * *

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

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website https://www.philstar.com/columns/134276/gotcha