Chinese nationals, in the guise of business or investments, enter our shores and indulge in illegal operations for months, even years, before government regulators find out about their activities.
Government's actions and confirmations of their illegal operations come ever too late, to the point that they have entrenched themselves in resources-rich provinces and towns before the regulators step in to arrest some of them.
Something is terribly wrong with our intelligence gathering– at the start when they enter the country they slip past the Bureau of Immigration (BI) – then they entrench themselves in a community until people would lose curiosity about what exactly their business is in their jurisdictions.
Such a “surprising: discovery began with Bamban Mayor Alice Guo in the illegal POGOs– that turned out to be engaged in heinous crimes and perhaps even espionage– and the extraction of coral reefs in the West Philippine Sea, the mother of pearl shells in Tubattaha Reef and then now in Paracale, Bicol, where the supposed investors are into illegal mining operations.
Of late, Environment Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said the department is building a case against people behind illegal mining in Camarines Norte province, are said to be run by Chinese nationals posing as tourists (but have earlier claimed to be investors).
Yulo-Loyzaga told palace reporters that the Chinese-run small-scale mining activities in Paracale were found to have obtained a permit from local authorities and the local Mines and GeoSciences Bureau and Environmental Management Bureau, both under her.
“What we know is that this operation has a history. In 2023, they had completed their permitting requirements and had been permitted to operate,” she said, adding that of late they have been operating outside the area they were permitted to operate and there is the presence of foreign workers.
Yulo-Loyzaga made the confirmation following Sunday’s arrest of 11 Chinese who were said to have been working for an illegal mine in Paracale, a coastal town known for its small-scale gold mining, the Inquirer reported.
The Chinese workers reportedly carried tourist visas for the duration of their stay in the Philippines, said the interagency task force that conducted the raid.
Paracale Mayor Romeo Moreno last Wednesday said five of the Chinese nationals were arrested at the site of the mineral processing plant in Barangay Tawig while six were found in two separate safehouses in the town on Oct. 13. The foreigners had no legal working papers, Moreno added.
“The mineral plant is reportedly expanding its operations without proper authorization,” said Moreno as he confirmed that it had been issued an environmental compliance certificate.
Moreno said the local government, in cooperation with the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Environmental Management Bureau launched an investigation on Wednesday.
“Preliminary findings indicate that uranium (used for nuclear plants and weapons), a highly regulated mineral, is allegedly being excavated at the site,” he said.
“The facility, which is located on private property in a mountainous area of Tawig, will remain under close scrutiny until the investigation is concluded,” Moreno said.
Despite the operators’ supposed mining permit, their activities are still considered illegal, Yulo-Loyzaga said citing that “it’s illegal to have foreign workers by law in your operation, unless there are specific, highly technical positions which require such technical advice or capacity.”
She expressed concern over the involvement of foreigners in illegal mining activities, with similar arrests of alien workers reported in the upland areas of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities last year.
She said the DENR is working very closely with partners like the LGUs and the Department of National Defense. She said DENR has already issued a cease-and-desist order against the Paracale mining activity as it builds up a case against those involved in it.
The DENR is also asking the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to check if the proceeds of the mining operations were properly accounted for and if the company had complied with the restrictions against engaging foreign workers.
Earlier the Presidential Anti Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) raised its suspicion that the Paracale Chinese operators were exploring for uranium although on paper they were exploring for ore but technical assessments of engineers cited the high probability that they are trying to source out uranium deposits as Paracale is a possible source of uranium, said PAOCC spokesman Winston Casio.
Casio said among the Chinese group’s violations, aside from having no legal work papers, was the unauthorized expansion of their mining operations.
“They did not amend their ECC and expanded operations beyond those areas authorized by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) where they could extract and process. Any single alteration from the original ECC must require an amendment to that particular ECC,” he said.
Uranium is a heavy metal used as a source of concentrated energy for more than 60 years, mainly for nuclear reactors. To become fuel, uranium goes through refining and enrichment before it is used as a source of nuclear energy.
A small pellet of uranium the size of a pencil eraser produces as much energy as a ton of coal, or three barrels of oil, or about two fuel tankers of natural gas, the Inquirer quoted a 2020 article posted by the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute.
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