CITY OF MALOLOS—Several security guards and a mining operator in Bulacan on Tuesday filed several cases against retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan and several others before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office in this city.

The complainants have charged Palparan and company with robbery through force and intimidation, grave coercion, serious illegal detention, and usurpation of real interest in real property.

The complainants almost failed to file the complaint as Ceasar Santos, fourth assistant provincial prosecutor, refused to accept the charges, saying, “Ayaw ko ng ganyang kaso [I don’t like cases like that],” and immediately left his office after uttering, “Bakit maraming media rito [Why is it that there are many media people here]?”

The reaction of Santos has left speculations that there may be moves to prevent the filing of charges against Palparan and company.

The complaint sheet was finally accepted some 30 minutes later, when Sinforoso Roque Jr., assistant provincial prosecutor, accepted the complaint sheet.

The cases filed against Palparan stemmed from the takeover of a mine site in barangay Camachin, Doña Remedios Trinidad (DRT) town, by a group of armed men, allegedly led by Palparan, on April 12.

Also charged were Lt. Col. Pedrito Santos, lawyer Arturo Mercader, president of Ore Development Corp. 2; and others, including barangay captain Romy Santiago of Pulong, Sampaloc, Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan.

In the complaint affidavit coursed through Justo Cabrera, Ore Asia vice president for business and development, the individual complainants claimed that Palparan personally led the assault on the mine site and disarmed the security guards and the operator of the said mine site.

 The complainants told reporters that they were robbed of their cellular telephones, service firearms and other communication devices by Palparan’s group, and held for almost 20 hours.

“We managed to free ourselves from Palparan’s group after the latter fled from the mine site upon seeing the arrival of several members of the media,” one of the complainants said.               

Cabrera claimed the takeover of the mine site was upon the instructions of Mercader, the president of Odeco 2.

The original Ore Development Corp. has been split into Odeco 1 and Odeco 2 following a split among the owners of the company.

Ore Asia officials in a news conference in Quezon City showed video footage of Palparan and several armed men in Army fatigues leaving the premises of the mining company’s stockpile yard in Doña Remedios Trinidad.

Jundo Alsesto, security officer in charge of Ore Asia, earlier told the BusinessMirror he is positive that Palparan barged into the mining company’s compound late afternoon of April 12 with heavily armed men wearing Army uniforms bearing patches of the 23rd Infantry Battalion (IB) and several blue guards without patches but also heavily armed.

Brig. Gen. Manuel Mariano, then officer in charge of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, in a telephone interview, vehemently denied that the Army’s 23rd IB was involved in the forced eviction of Ore Asia’s security guards on that day and helped install a new set of blue guards on the disputed mining area.

“Our troops are not engaged in any corporate dispute. We are very busy in the counterinsurgency campaign in Central Luzon, and the 23rd IB is not even deployed in Bulacan. The battalion deployed in DRT belongs to the 56th IB, and I believe the 23rd IB is deployed somewhere in Mindanao,” Mariano said.

Lt. Col. Alfred Rosario, 56th IB commander, also denied to reporters that Army troops are interfering in Ore Asia’s problems.

Rosario made the reaction amid reports that around 30 to 40 vans entered the compound of Ore Asia, with armed men allegedly wearing Army fatigue uniforms with patches emblazoned with the insignia of the 23rd IB and disarmed the private guards there and installed a new set of guards under one Odeco faction.

Ore Asia is a contractor of Odeco.

On the otherhand, Doña Remedios Trinidad Mayor Evelyn Paulino urged the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to resolve the mining row.

“Only the DENR has the final say on which is which on the disputes of the mining companies,” adding, let us put everything in proper process, since thousands of mine workers are being displaced because of the dispute,” Paulino said.

She said the loss of livelihood of the mine workers has led many of them to turn to charcoal making and firewood gathering, worsening the denudation of the Angat watersheds.

HSBC: Inflation could reach 8.5%

INFLATION could be as high as 8.5 percent between now and June, according to the regional chief economist of the global lender HSBC on Tuesday.

MILITANT groups on Tuesday filed before the Ombudsman a complaint against officials of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for alleged price manipulation.

SANDIGANBAYAN sheriffs backed by policemen on Tuesday failed to locate former justice secretary Hernando Perez, his wife Rosario and brother in law Ramon Arceo, who were ordered arrested by the antigraft court on graft, extortion and other charges.

EIGHT out of the 24 hospitals that perform kidney transplantation in the country have violated the law that limits the number of such procedure done on foreigners, the Department of Health (DOH) said.

CITY OF MALOLOS—Several security guards and a mining operator in Bulacan on Tuesday filed several cases against retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan and several others before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office in this city.

THE National Police is closely coordinating with the Judiciary the turnover of confiscated firearms that have been submitted as evidence in court for the possible use of its members.

A COURT martial ordered on Tuesday the discharge from the service of five junior officers it found to have violated the Articles of War in connection with their participation in the Oakwood mutiny in Makati City almost five years ago.