BY ROGER M. BALANZA

Filipinos particularly from South Cotabato know very well this Mr. Clive Montgomery Wicks, the alleged expert on mining imported by anti-mining activists led by Ateneo de Davao University president Fr. Joel Tabora to speak on mining in a forum in Davao City.

Mr. Wicks has a sad record of bringing tears to people who see in mining a saving grace in the country’s sagging economy.

He wants the poor to remain poor. Filipinos sit on soil rich in gold and other precious minerals, but this Mr. Wicks does not want Filipinos to gain benefit from it.

Mr. Wicks was in town last week to speak at the International Conference on Mining in Mindanao on Fr. Tabora’s invitation held at the Ateneo campus.

Naturally, Mr. Wicks felt at home in such a gathering: the audience was a large company of anti-mining adherents, who subscribed to his idea that mining is bad for environment and people.

Mr. Wicks is an old hand in the anti-mining business and responsible mining is not in his dictionary.

People looking at the $5.9 billion Sagittarius Mines Tampakan Gold-Copper Project with hope has a special hatred for this Mr. Wicks.

He has dished out doomsday scenarios about how the project would cause damage to environment and people, dashing the hopes of thousands of Christians and indigenous people looking at the Tampakan project with much anticipation that could bring progress and development.

Last year, while the whole of South Cotabato jubilated at the prospect of hosting Asia’s biggest gold-and-copper project, easily the country’s single biggest investment in decades, came this Wicks the Wicked with his prognostications of doomsday scenarios and alleged shock-and-awe findings about what would happen to the province once the mine project starts operation.

For the uninitiated, Wicks is a British national, who wrote a book about mining in the Philippines, and who claim to be an expert on mining’s impact on people and environment.

He acted as mouthpiece of environmentalists and the Catholic Church in SoCot in opposing the SMI project while the company was conducting massive consultations on the project in host communities.

According to the bible of Wicks the Wicked, the SMI project would cause massive flooding, steal away lands from the native Blaans and generally cause misery to the region.
The people of SoCot are looking with great anticipation at the US$5.9 billion project to change the economic landscape of the province and the lives of its people for the better. But no thanks to Wicks the Wicked, this anticipation is being muddled by his lousy and unfounded projections.

Does Mr. Wicks the Wicked have an alternative to lifting up the economic landscape of SoCot? Nada.
Does this Mr. Wicks want the people of SoCot to remain poor despite the billions of dollars worth of gold and copper sitting in the bowels of their God-blessed land? I guess so.

The people of SoCot had dismissed this Mr. Wicks as a joke. So he grabbed the opportunity to speak in Davao City about SMI.

 The wicked never prevails over the good, and Wicks the Wicked shall miserably fail in derailing the project, greatly anticipated by the people of SoCot, with his doomsday scenarios and shock-and-awe pronouncements.

As it is SMI is but a step away from starting operation, its Environmental Impact Study laid open in a public consultation attended by an approving thousands.

The denial by DENR of its application for Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) may have brought jubilation to Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez, Mr. Wicks and others opposing SMI.

But they could be having only a premature ejaculation. SMI has appealed the decision and we are seeing President Aquino intervening one of these days to put a close to the misery of SMI and make a reality the dream of the people of South Cotabato to take advantage of their God-given rich mineral resources.

Okay, to be fair to Mr. Wicks the Wicked, it’s true that mining is a “destructive” business. But being a “mining expert” Mr. Wicks could have heard about “mitigating measures” and “responsible mining.”

He could have known that mitigating measures are precisely imposed on mining company plans to avert ennvironmental damage. And that mitigating measures are the keys to preventing “destruction” and provide a balance between economic development and environmental protection.

Mr. Wicks the Wicked could also have heard about responsible mining, a mantra that the Philippine government inculcates in the mind of foreigners who want to invest in mining in the country.

Mining, certainly, is a saving grace for the Philippine economy, the country being rich in mineral resources.

Is Mr. Wicks trying to derail this program for the economic development and social upliftment of the masses with his doomsday scenarios?

Then he should be driven out of the country, along with his projections.

Mr. Wicks the wicket in our book is an economic saboteur.

SMI is the biggest investment ever in our part of Mindanao. Certainly, economic boom would be a reality when it starts digging for gold and copper.

Responsible mining is the key word, and it appears SMI has its heart in the right place when this requirement is imposed on it.
Being one who puts his fingers into the mining business, Mr. Wicks could have known about the speech of Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje before the ASIA MINING CONGRESS 2011 held early this year in Singapore.

We attribute to past and current experiences the negative impacts of mining on the environment and host communities.   The industry continues to labor under the stigma of its “sins of the past,” according to Paje    Has Wicks the Wicked read the Philippine Mining Act of 1995? Then he could have been educated of the fact that under this law, the  ” sins of the past”, through an elaborate mechanism imposing strong mitigating measures on mining companies, will never happen again.

According to Paje, the administration of President Aquino lllis bent on fully  addressing the issues confronting the Philippine mining industry.

The Philippine government continues to bank on mineral resources development as a vehicle for economic growth.  There will definitely be challenges along the way.  But for as long as democracy remains dynamic, we will always see the Philippines taking a critical role in promoting responsible mining as a measure of making this part of the world a better place to live in and invest in, said Paje.

As we said, Wicks the Wicked is an economic saboteur and Ateneo’s Fr. Tabora, if he wants Filipinos to remain poor like Wicks, is in the right company.

TABORA, GUTIERREZ: No mining investments?

Look who is talking!

While certain top Catholic Church leaders are opposing mining in the Philippines, top personalities like bishops and Catholic organizations are among heavy investors in large mining companies, said an official of the Chamber of Mining of the Philippines (COMP).
All you have to do to confirm this is to look at the records of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Rocky Dimaculangan, communications officer of COMP.
Dimaculangan’s statement, made at a mining conference held in Davao City on January 26, 2012 organized in part by COMP, confirmed an earlier statement by Fr. Emeterio Barcelon, former president of the Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) in Davao City.
Retired Jesuits priest Barcelon, also former president of Xavier Uiversity in Cagayan de Oro City, earlier frowned at Catholic Church leaders spearheading movements against mining in the country.
Barcelon said the anti-mining stance of certain leaders of the church is not the official position of the Catholic Church.
An advocate of large-scale responsible mining, Barcelon had earlier scored South Cotabato Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Guttierez, who is on top of the opposition to the $5.9 billion Tampakan Gold-Copper Project of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) in Tampakan, South Cotabato.
The SMI project is the single biggest investment in the country today.
Barcelon said modern mining methods now amply protected people and environment in the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.
Dimaculangan however refused to give names of Catholic Church leaders and groups with investments in mining.
He made the statement at the conference held simultaneously held with that of another mining conference organized by the Jesuits-run Ateneo de Davao University in Davao City attended by anti-mining foreign experts.
COMP has slammed the 2012 International Conference of Mining in Mindanao as primarily aimed at “killing the mining industry in the Philippines.
Officers of COMP, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and those from the mining industry were barred by organizers led by AdDU president Fr. Joel Tabora from attending the conference attended by foreign anti-mining activists Catherine Courmans, Dr. Robert Goodland and Clive Wicks.
It was a conference intended to kill the mining industry in the Philippines, said Dimaculangan.
In the letter request COMP said: We do understand your anxieties and your genuine concern for the protection of our environment and our people and we share the same concern particularly on how we can efficiently utilize our resources for the betterment of our country and citizens,” the chamber said on its letter.
COMP in the letter also emphasized the import of multi-stakeholder participation in a conference such as that organized by AdDU and the Catholic Educators Association of the Philippines (CEAP).
At this time, we believe we should be engaging with various groups in order to understand the perspectives of others on the mining industry as we recognize that in moving forward, we need to appreciate each other’s concerns, respect views and opinions because in the end, we know that we can work together on commonly shared values, said COMP.

Long after Sagittarius Mines Mines Inc. (SMI) would have wrapped up its mining operation in South Cotabato, the company would leave an imprint that nobody can steal: the education of Blaan children.
Gold would be gone, but never the fruits of the educational scholarship given by SMI to our Blaan children, said Datu Samuel Hauz, Tboli town tribal council chair and vice president of South Cotabato Provincial tribal council for the second district, and Benjamin Matimbang, Tampakan municipality tribal council chair and vice president of the Tribal Council of South Cotabato Provincial Tribal Councilfor the first district.
SMI operates the $5.9 billion Tampakan Gold-Copper Project, straddling South Cotabato, Davao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat. Blaans mostly populate host communities of the SMI project.
The tribal leaders said about 4,000 young Blaans are in school from elementary to college on scholarship grants by SMI. Literacy rate among tribal communities in South Cotabato is among lowest in the country.
This has never done by the local government before, said Hauz and Matimbang.
Before it can commercially operate its 10,000 hectare concession in 2016, SMI has already set into motion its Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) by funding, education, health, environmental and other social programs.

SMI has brought many opportunities to all Blaans. We leaders will defend our tribe’s right to progress and development, said the tribal leaders adding, farm-to-market roads built by SMI also changed the economic life for the better of Blaan farmers.
We will defend their rights to happiness and opportunities, said the tribal datus who are strongly supporting SMI when interviewed in a Davao City-based radio station about the benefits from SMI to tribal communities.
Hauz said SMI’s presence also had impacted on early marriages, saying most young Blaans now wanted first to work for the company or jump at livelihood opportunities spinning off from the economic presence of the mining company.
When before most Blaan maidens marry at twelve, now they don’t want to marry early. Having children is now a second priority to first ensuring their future before settling down, he said.
With SMI presence, high technology is also catching up on the young Blaans.
Who could imagine that today’s young Blaans are now having cellphones and laptops? Hauz said.
SMI has changed the quality of life of the Blaans, said Hauz and Matimbang.
The tribal leaders said the educated young Blaans would be playing a role that would be of import to the tribal communities during an after the SMI operations.
With education, the young Blaans can help our tribal communities in managing the royalty received from SMI, said Hauz and Matimbang. Under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) tribal communities get a share of one percent from gross income of business operating in ancestral domains. ROGER M. BALANZA

       An alleged foreign expert’s projection of damage to environment and people by the $5.9 billion Tampakan Gold-Copper Project in South Cotabato of Sagittarius Mining Inc. (SMI) has been described as a “doomsday scenario” without basis.

SMI corporate communications officer John Arnaldo said Clive Wicks was blind to measures being adopted by the company to prevent potential disasters he detailed in a conference on mining in Davao City.

We have completed our Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in accordance with relevant local and international standards. These robust, evidence-based studies involved both Filipino and international experts and have taken a number of years to complete as part of our integrated mine planning process. The EIA identified the proposed measures to mitigate and manage the potential environmental and social risks, Arnaldo said.

The EIS and ESIA document the project risks and SMI’s commitments to mitigate these risks. We are confident all risks can be mitigated, he said as Wicks, a noted anti-mining activist, made the doomsday scenario in his speech at the International Conference on Mining in Mindanao organized by the Catholic Church-run Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) held in Davao City from January 26 to 27, 2012.

Wicks told the mostly anti-mining participants in the AdDU conference, that  SMI plans to store mine wastes on top of a mountain above the open pit mine site.

The mine wastes will be stacked up to 300 meters high and will cover about 500 hectares, he said.

Wicks said since the mining area is only ten kilometers away from Mount Matutum, an active volcano, seismic activities within the mining area is high.

 There is the possibility of mine wastes going down to the populated area and the water sources, he said.

But Arnaldo said a site specific hazard assessment was completed as part of the EIS, which included consideration of volcanic hazards.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recently junked approval of the application for Environmental Clearance Certificate of SMI. The ECC gives the go-signal for SMI to proceed with construction work on the project.

The DENR basis in rejecting the SMI ECC was not the SMI EIS/EIA, which has already been subjected to massive consultations in host communities, but the Environmental Code approved by the South Cotabato provincial government.

The Code banned open-pit mining, the method that SMI would use in its operation.

DENR said the Code needed to be amended to allow open-pit mining, before it could issue the ECC. SMI has filed an appeal against the DENR decision.

The Philippine Mining Act of 1995 allowed foreigners into the mining industry because the Philippine government has no money or expertise to undertake large-scale mining operations. 

One of foreign mining companies who took a gamble in the liberalization of the mining industry is Sagittarius Mining Inc. (SMI).

Still on exploration stage, SMI’s $5.9 billion Tampakan Copper-Gold Project in South Cotabato is set for commercial operation in 2016.

There are persistent moves in the anti-mining sector to allow government and bar foreign companies in the development of the country’s mineral resources.

An association of large-scale mining companies said this could imperil the development of the mining industry that has already lured international investors.

But the primary reason is that government has no capability to manage large-scale mining and the industry could be pushed to limbo if foreign capital is not allowed in.

       The government has no money or expertise to conduct large-scale mining, said Leo G. Dominguez of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) in a conference on mining in Davao City on January 26, 2012.

The Philippines passed the 1995 Mining Act because it cannot afford to do the exploration and mining activities  for lack of money and expertise, said Dominguez in  the conference organized by COMP, Mindanao Business Council, University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP), USeP Mining Society and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).

The group hurriedly set the conference after organizers barred representatives from the mining industry and the DENR from attending an anti-mining conference on the same day held at the Jesuits-run Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU, also in Davao City.

In the International Conference on Mining in Mindanao at the AdDU, organizers led by AdDU president Fr.Joel Tabora called for the scrapping of the 1995 Mining Act and proposed passage of the Minerals Management Act that would give government the sole prerogative in developing the mineral industry.

But MBC chairman Vicente Lao, in the USeP conference, said government should be thankful to the foreign investors for helping the country develop its mineral resources.

We should protect these companies because they are helping our economy, said Lao, adding the government cannot develop the industry by itself for lack of financial and technical capability.

There is no sell-out of the nation’s patrimony as anti-mining activists claim in allowing foreign companies into the minerals industry.

 Under the Constitution and the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 mineral resources are properties of the state and mining companies are only contractors under agreements to undertake mining for the government, said Dominguez.

      In effect, he said those opposing projects like the $5.9 billion Tampakan Gold-Copper Project in South Cotabato are not opposing its proponent Sagittarius Mining Inc. (SMI),  but the government itself, said Dominguez.

      Exploration by SMI, which has set the Tampakan project for commercial operation in 2016, has been on hold after the DENR denied issuance of an Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) to the project on the basis of the Environmental Code passed by the South Cotabato provincial government.

The Code prohibits open-pit mining, the method that SMI would use in the Tampakan project. Open-pit mining however is allowed by the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.

An alleged expert on mining’s threat to people and environment in the Philippines warned the possible negative impact of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) Tampakan Gold-Copper Project in South Cotabato could possibly last up to thousands of years.
But the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) shot down the doomsday scenario suggested by Dr. Catherine Courmans of Mining Watch Canada.

DIMACULANGAN

Her speculation is a product of short visits to mine sites in the country and consultations with anti-mining organizations, said COMP spokesman Rocky Dimaculangan.
Dimaculangan said the public should not take her words hook-line-and-sinker.
Courmans, along with Dr. Robert Goodard and Clive Wicks were guest speakers at the International Conference on Mining in Mindanao organized by the Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) and the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP) held in Davao City on January 26-27, 2012.
Wicks himself figured as the poster of the anti-mining activists during massive consultations last year on SMI’s Environmental Impact Study held in host communities of the $5.9 billion Tampakan project in South Cotabato.
Dimaculangan said the public could not expect a positive view on mining from the foreigners for their lack of credibility.
These foreigners are known for their staunch opposition to mining in the Philippines, said Dimaculangan.
The COMP spokesman also said the Davao conference is the only “international conference” on mining in the world conducted without the participation of the mining industry.
Fr. Joel Tabora, Ateneo president and lead organizer of the conference, denied our request to attend, said Dimaculangan.
Members of COMP who wanted to attend the conference were barred from entering the venue, said Dimaculangan.
Also banned from the conference were regional directors of the DENR Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).
As an offshoot of the ban, COMP, MGB, the Mindanao Business Council (MBC) and the state-owned University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) held a separate joint conference on mining at the USeP campus on opening day of the Ateneo mining confab.
Dimaculangan said the Ateneo conference was intended as an anti-mining conference and excluded other stakeholders who can “correct misimpressions about mining.”
The conference was organized with the end in view of stopping mining all over the Philippines, said Dimaculangan.

      It has specific provisions that take into consideration the following – Local government empowerment; Respect and concern for the indigenous cultural communities; Equitable sharing of benefits of natural wealth; Economic demands of present generation while providing the necessary foundation for future generations; Worldwide trend towards globalization; and Protection for and wise management of the environment.

      The provision of the Philippine Mining Act that allows open-pit mining however has been placed in legal question by local government units, which passed ordinances and resolutions banning the mining practice.

      In South Cotabato, the provincial government has passed the Environmental Code which bans open pit mining.

      Zamboanga del Norte also has expressed its opposition to the practice in a resolution passed by its provincial board.

       Zamboanga Sibugay was likely to follow suit, said the paper.

      The ban placed at risk billions of dollars in investments, said the paper.

      The mining industry has assailed the ban.

      Like a wildfire burning everything in its path, the South Cotabato Environmental Code is developing into a conflagration spreading to as far as the Zamboanga Peninsula and Palawan to push down to its knees the mining industry in Mindanao.

Local anti-mining legislation, the armed New Peoples Army (NPA) insurgents, and multiple taxation are the biggest threats to mining in Mindanao, said the Coalition of Responsible Mining (Coremin).

      Coremin raised its concern about threats to the mining industry during the 20th Mindanao Business Conference (MinBizCon) held in Pagadian City in early September.

      The SoCot Environmental Code has banned open-pit mining to pose a threat to the planned operation of the US$5.9 billion Tampakan Copper and Gold Project of Sagittarius Mines, Inc. in Tampakan in South Cotabato province.

      The South Cotabato Enviromental Code has served as a template for other provinces like Zamboanga del Norte and Palawan to copy, said Coremin.

            In the statement, Coremin urged the Aquino administration to resolve the conflict between local legislations and the Mining Act of 1995, which does not ban open-pit mining.

BY ROGER M. BALANZA

When the enemies get tough—-stop!
When the going gets rough —-flee!
These two lines may as well be part of the code of safety for journalists in Mindanao—to save their skin from harm or death.
Two media killings in Davao City illustrated the fate that could befall members of the press who violated the first code of safety.
In 2001, top-rated radio broadcaster Juan “Jun” Porras Pala was killed in ambush near his home in a middle-class subdivision at the outskirts of the city proper. Pala was armed along with his bodyguards when waylaid. It was the third attempt on his life. He survived the first two with minor injuries.
Pala as a popular broadcaster had ruled the Davao air lanes for decades through his top-rating radio programs peppered with tons of acerbic verbal assaults against persons in government, police and military and others he perceived were anti-people. It made him very popular but also earned a myriad of enemies.
He first made his name in the early 80s as the propagandist of the Alsa Masa (People Rising), the military-backed peoples movement that helped drive communist rebels away from the city’s urban centers, when communist hit men called ‘Sparrows’ used Davao City as a laboratory for its urban guerilla warfare. In that sad and violent era in the city’s history marked by hundreds of assassinations and summary executions of police and military personnel and civilians by the communist rebels, Pala emerged as a rabidly anti-communist radio journalists who marshaled public support against the rebels.
He would later parlay his popularity into winning a post in the local legislative body, but his anti-communist crusade continued this time coupled with an anti-corruption drive.
Pala’s enemies quadrupled.
Police investigating his death could only speculate as to who was behind the murder: police, military, politicians and the communist New Peoples Army. The murder remains unsolved until today.
Broadcaster Ferdie “Batman” Lintuan was positioning himself as the next Jun Pala when motorcycle-riding gunmen waylaid him while he was leaving his radio station in Agdao district. Lintuan was aboard his car with two broadcaster colleagues, who emerged unscathed, when shot dead in the ambush that also remained unsolved today.
Lintuan made a name by exposing anomalies in government and private sector. Politics could also be behind the killing. Lintuan was widely known as one of the publicists of a major political figure in Davao City.
Prior to his death, he had exposed alleged rampant smuggling in the Bureau of Customs and in the construction of a public park. His expose on the public park led the local government to ask the audit commission to conduct a probe to clear its name from Lintuan’s expose.
The threats against members of the press in Davao City are seldom reported either in print or broadcast but journalists take note of assassins to possibly target its members based on the line of broadcast or printed articles of individual newsmen. As a matter of self preservation, they advise each other about potential threats, caution each other to go slow and make notes in the event something happens to the pressmen. We are one of those who do this as part of our effort to save members of media from harm.
Press groups here like National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP), Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters ng Pilipinas (KBP) and the Philippine Press Institute, or the local press clubs are helpless when threats against media members are reported, even if the danger is imminent.
But they quickly surface after the trigger is pulled and a member of the press is killed.
The press groups become visible only after somebody is killed, in finely-crafted press releases condemning the murder, that are nothing more than obituaries.
Pala and Lintuan violated the first code of safety for threatened journalists: When the going got rough, they refused to stop.
Call him coward but Stephen Manangan took the second code of safety when the wall was crushing down on him as the anchor of a highly-popular anti-graft, anti-corruption morning radio program BANAT on the ABS/CBN radio station DXAB.
A teacher by profession, Manangan raised the level of quality of local radio journalism, gaining respect through his acute analysis of day-to-day events in all spectrum of the city and in his crusade for good governance and social equity.
Like Pala and Lintuan however, he was also merciless in his crusade against corrupt police and military officials and those in other branches of governance.
Two unsolved media killings were enough for friends of Manangan both in media and public to dish out pieces of advices about slowing down on his verbal assaults.

One early evening in middle 2009, gunmen strafed the house of a tribal leader in a far-flung district in Davao City.
There were instant suspects in the murder of Datu Dominador Diarog, the leader of the Guiangan Tribe in Tugbok district, and the wounding of his wife and children: henchmen of the head of a religious sect that wanted to grab ancestral domain lands from tribal communities in Tugbok. The leader of the sect, a politically-connected pastor of an internationally-known evangelist group, planned to build a 100-hectare Prayer Mountain in Tugbok that it would call Little Jerusalem in preparation for what it prophesied as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The area included an ancestral domain land claimed by the tribe of Datu Diarog.
Datu Diarog had marshaled his tribe to rise up against the land grabbing.
But his world got smaller, with his tribesmen selling their lands to the sect out of self-preservation and fear, after being harassed by armed men.
At the time of his murder, Datu Diarog’s 2-hectare property was the lone property that has not been bought out by the sect. He had vehemently refused to sell his land despite the harassment and threat to his life.
Prior to the killing, armed men also strafed his house and in another incident burned his house. A barangay official linked to the sect of the preacher is suspected as the mastermind in the killing of Diarog.
Manangan came into the picture by using his program to encourage the tribal natives to rise up in arms against the preacher and urged the communist New Peoples Army to come to the aid of the harassed natives. That the sect had no qualms about using violence against its enemies was fearsome. One of the organizers of mass rallies and marches from the farflung village to the urban center by the natives in protest of the harassment and land grabbing would be killed in downtown Davao City.
For his broadcast, Manangan would earn the ire of the preacher and his followers, who are suspected as behind threatening phone calls and text messages targeting Manangan.
Armed men on motorcycles suspected as on a mission to kill Manangan were regularly spotted passing by ABS/CBN headquarters in Matina Hills in Davao City apparently to intimidate Manangan to stop him from continuing his verbal assaults against the preacher and his hired guns.
Manangan dipping his fingers into harassment of the tribals by a religious group was a potential motive for him to go the way of Pala and Lintuan. But Manangan played his cards well.
There were other issues he raised that placed the life of Manangan in grave danger from assassins.
For years, elements of the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) policing the southern highways of Davao City have made a lucrative business of fleecing cargo trucks from Central Mindanao entering the city. The policemen demanded money from drivers before allowing them to proceed to deliver their cargo of agricultural products and fish.
Manangan took to task in his broadcast the regional head of the Philippine National Police (PNP), which has supervision over the HPG. PNP regional chief Oscar Tango was open in his anger at Manangan for his broadcast that led him into being confronted by then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for his failure to stop the highway robbery by police personnel. Manangan’s expose also led to the dismissal of the head of the HPG and subsequently threats on his life sent through text messages..
In 2009, Manangan also came into collision with the local political leadership and police over his negative commentaries on summary executions of minors suspected as linked to crimes.
His broadcast in part helped in catching the attention of the Commission on Human Rights on the killings and an investigation by then CHR Commisioner Leila Delima into the alleged role of then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and the local police leadership in the killings and for their failure to stop the extrajudicial killings.
Direct threats through verbal warnings coursed phone calls apparently coming from elements of the dreaded Davao Death Squad, the alleged state-backed assassins said to be behind behind the killings, reached Manangan.
Manangan also carved out warfronts with local officials allegedly involved in corruption through legislative approval of controversial business projects.
The biggest of these controversial projects is the multi-million-peso hydropower dam by power producer Aboitiz planned to be built in the city’s highland district of Tamugan in Marilog.
The project was highly opposed by Manangan in his broadcast commentaries, picking from fears of tribal native and farmers that the project would destroy farmlands and violate ancestral domain rights of the natives. Some members of the legislative council took umbrage at Manangan’s claim of huge pay-off in the approval by the Davao City Council of the project. ABS/CBN personnel tell of a confrontation between Manangan and the chairman of the city council committee that handled the Aboiitiz project, right inside the ABS/CBN compound, after one of the commentaries of Manangan where he assailed members of the city council for approving the project.
Other serious topics that led Manangan in confrontations with aggrieved parties included the killing of a Davao city businessman’s son by a scion of the politically-connected powerful Ampatuan clan of Maguindanao province in Central Mindanao.
Long before the infamous Maguindanao Massacre in 2009, where 53 people including 32 members of the press were murdered in a politically-related media killing, the worst in media history, Manangan exposed the abuses in Davao City by the members of the clan, many of whom had residences in Davao City.
The businessman’s son was shot dead in a bar after an argument with a member of the Ampatuan clan. Manangan’s commentaries on the abuses triggered a flood of threats in phone calls and text messages warning him to stop. His neighbors in Tagum City also warned him of motorcycle-riding armed men reconnoitering his house, while ABS/CBN personnel also said suspected persons were looking for him in Davao City.
Manangan had “wronged” so many people that members of the media in Davao City are surprised that he had not gone the way of Pala and Lintuan.
But the threats remain and Manangan may not be safe: the Davao Death Squad is alive, so are the politicians and police personnel damaged by his commentaries and exposes.
Some members of the Ampatuan clan may be in jail for the Maguindanao Massacre but their henchmen are still around in Davao City.
The preacher is still politically-connected and the Little Jerusalem issue remains hot with the tribal natives continuing their fight against the land grabbing.
Manangan has created many enemies. The biggest fear is that there is danger in the silence before the storm. Retribution is safest and cleanest when the target thinks time has healed the wounds.
Manangan was right in seeing logic in the second code of safety for threatened journalists.
Unlike Pala and Lintuan, he chose the other road. When the going got rough—he fled to the United States of America.
Before assassins can get to him.