White elephant or milking cow?

In this column on Tuesday, Jan. 18, I referred to the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport (APECO) as a white elephant.

I now say categorically that APECO is not only a white elephant; it’s a milking cow of a prominent political family, the Angaras of Aurora province.

The late senator Edgardo Angara and his son, Sonny, who was then a member of the House of Representatives, sponsored the law creating ASEZA (Aurora Special Economic Zone Authority), later renamed APECO.

The law was supported by then Aurora Gov. Bella Flores Angara-Castillo; but of course!

Despite knowing that APECO would never be viable as an economic zone and freeport, the Angaras still pushed through with the law.

The place is very far from Manila (about 355 kms by road) and located in Casiguran, the remotest part of Aurora. The province is always visited by typhoons.

Trivia about Casiguran: It was the epicenter of the 1968 earthquake that collapsed the Ruby Tower in Sta. Cruz, Manila; Casiguran town was the scene of several landslides.

APECO has no locator except one Korean gambling outlet or POGO (Philippine offshore gaming operator), Lucky Dragon Online Solution Corp.

Reports reaching this columnist say Lucky Dragon is transferring elsewhere.

Another possible locator, Kim Haeng Jung, backed out of APECO, complaining that it was impossible to set up other POGO operations because of lack of facilities – electricity and internet connections – in APECO.

Kim also complained of being duped by his Filipino partners, as well as fellow Koreans he suspected to be in cahoots with the Pinoys.

It boggles the mind that APECO, despite being a white elephant, still exists, and at one time was funded P400 million for a year!

Sen. Dick Gordon said in a budget hearing for APECO that the government had already spent P2.2 billion since it was opened and only had P72.7 million in revenues to show for it.

APECO as a place is dangerous, world-renowned architect and urban planner Jun Palafox intimated.

Palafox said that APECO is “a wrong project at the wrong place and at the wrong time.”

Palafox said APECO is in danger of ground liquefaction (process of becoming liquid due to earthquake), flooding and being hit by tsunamis.

Former senator Serge Osmeña, in an interview with this columnist, said that a Korean firm spent P500 million for the road leading to Casiguran where the Angaras “took 20 percent in commission.”

Fr. Jose Francisco Talaban, Casiguran parish priest, told this columnist that the then senator Ed Angara sponsored a law appropriating around 11,900 hectares of land for APECO which was taken away from the Agtas or indigenous people in Aurora.

The late senator Angara filed a slew of libel cases against Palafox because of his adverse comments about APECO.

Somebody threw a grenade at the kumbento (quarters) of Father Talaban, apparently to scare him off and get him to stop his opposition to APECO.

More on APECO in the next columns.

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Consolidated Mining Corp., whose operations caused the discoloration of the once clear Mapagba and Pintatagan rivers in Banaybanay, Davao Oriental, must be very influential with some officials in the present dispensation.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) stopped the mining operations after residents in the area, who fish in the rivers, complained that the water had become murky.

Why did we say Riverbend Consolidated was “very influential?” They easily secured a permit to mine in the province.

Company officials made a courtesy call on Gov. Nelson Dayanghirang only after their papers were approved by the DENR.

If the company was not arrogant, its officials could have visited the governor long before the firm was still applying for permit to mine nickel in the province.

Dayanghirang said the mining operations started late last year.

The governor said he learned that the approval of the mining company’s application took only two years when normally the waiting period was 10 years minimum.

Dayanghirang said the mining company is owned by a certain Nick Escalante, who is said to be a Chinese-Filipino from Manila.

Dayanghirang said another firm, Anchor Mining Corp., will soon be allowed to mine nickel in another part of the province.

Anchor Mining, the governor said, stopped operations upon his objection during the time of the late DENR Secretary Gina Lopez.

“Karon gitugutan na sila nga magmina (Now they’ve been allowed to mine),” Dayanghirang said.

For destroying the environment with irresponsible mining practices, the backers of Riverbend Consolidated Mining and Anchor Mining must be exposed and shamed.

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I hark back to the days of my early teens when I studied in my mother’s hometown in Manay, Davao Oriental for one year.

Those were halcyon days. People could drink water from the river and that part of Davao province (there was only one Davao then) was mostly jungle. There were countless birds, monkeys, wild pigs, wild chickens and deer in the forests.

Fish was abundant in Manay River. Some of my relatives would catch fish beneath the rocks with their small spear guns.

Fish could also be caught with traps, which were containers woven from bamboo strips.

Small shells, called kuyog, could be harvested from among the rocks in the river.

When it rained hard and floods from the mountains would flow downstream, crablets, called katang, would be caught by the hundreds with nets.

Our Manay River is no longer what it used to be.

Most of the time it’s murky even if there is no flood from upstream.

Yes, some women still wash clothes in the river, but people bathing or swimming in it risk getting skin diseases.

Illegal logging and mining up in the mountains contributed to the river’s degradation.