Mining firm raps DENR executive for 'bias, false reports'

MANILA, Philippines - A mining company is poised to file charges against the acting regional director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Environmental Management Bureau based in Iloilo for alleged bias and filing false reports against it.

In a statement, Romulo San Juan, legal counsel of Semirara Mining Corp. (SMC), accused Bienvenido Lipayon of allegedly becoming hostile to the company after it opposed his request to change the chairman of a multi-party committee that oversees two funds that the SMC, by law, had to put up.

San Juan said Lipayon caused injury to SMC through alleged “manifest partiality, evident bad faith, and gross inexcusable negligence.”

He said Lipayon, upon taking over as acting EMB regional director in 2008, wrote to request for a change in the leadership of the Multipartite Monitoring Team, which manages the two funds that SMC was required to put up to take care of the community’s needs while it is in operation and after it has mined out its area.

He said the company opposed Lipayon’s request, saying the existing leadership and set-up were functioning well and were installed upon the behest of the DENR secretary.

Last December, Lipayon, acting on a complaint by some residents of Barangay Bigo, Alegria town, asked the SMC to explain alleged siltation in an area that was about 10 kilometers from the mining site, San Juan said.

Although the report was found to be untrue based on a February 2009 report of his own subordinates, Lipayon allegedly went ahead and issued on the same day a notice of violation and order of fine against the SMC, he said.

San Juan said Lipayon also submitted a report to Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, who was not his superior.

Meanwhile, Mayor Reynante Lim of Caluya, which covers the barangays on the island, said they found out that among the signatories to the complaint were a 13-year-old, a person long deceased, and an illiterate man whose name was allegedly forged.

The SMC filed a motion for reconsideration. Last March 9, Lipayon said the motion would be resolved once he received the report of the multipartite group that went to the area to make an ocular inspection.

On March 28, the multipartite group reported that the allegations in the complaint were “all falsifications.”

San Juan, however, said they found out that Lipayon recommended the closure of Semirara’s washing plant last February, long before the awaited report. The motion remains unresolved until now.