Monday, April 28, 2008 Picop backs plea v. Diwalwal mining operations
THE publicly listed Picop (Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines) Resources Inc. has filed a manifestation with the Supreme Court (SC) in support of a motion of a Mindanao-based mining firm, questioning the government's agreement with the controversial Chinese firm ZTE Corp. to explore and operate the mining sites in the Mt. Diwalwal Gold Rush Area.
Picop is the country's largest paper and pulpwood producer operating in the 2,756-hectare forestland in Agusan del Sur.
The company is contesting the SC Third Division's decision voiding the presidential warranty given Picop to develop the forest and harvest pulp in the Agusan-Davao-Surigao Forest Reserve to boost the growth of the paper industry as a mere timber license.
In a manifestation filed on April 24, Picop asked the SC en banc to take a second look at a 2006 decision by the SC Third Division and to set the matter to oral argument.
The paper pioneer warned of dire consequences, among them the breakup of the country's forest reserve areas, if the Third Division's ruling is not reversed.
Unless the high court reverses the assailed decision, 12 million hectares of the country's forest reserves "will be divided into independent enclaves beyond jurisdiction of the state agencies," Picop lawyer Cirilo Doronila said.
"The decision has reversed the legal principles established in the long line of decisions that a forest reserve cannot be the subject of private appropriation. It is respectfully submitted that reversal of these legal doctrines may only be done by the SC en banc and not a division if the Constitution is to be expected," Doronila said.
In its November 29, 2006 ruling, the Third Division said despite the fact that it was operating inside a forest reserve, Picop still had to secure a certification of non-overlapping with an ancestral domain from the NCIP (National Council of Indigenous Peoples).
Picop said in effect, that decision gave imprimatur to the principle that forest reserves can be the subject of a CADC (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim) or a CADT (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title).
Under the Ipra (Indigenous People's Rights Act) law, ancestral domains are the private but community property of indigenous peoples and indigenous cultural communities in whose areas the agriculture, environment, local government, justice, education, defense and energy departments, among others, will no longer have authority.
Picop claimed that the decision "opened up 12 million hectares of the country's forest reserves, 40 percent of the country's land area, to CADTs where the above listed government agencies have no legal basis for jurisdiction and may have the unintended consequence of such areas being independent enclaves with their own armed components."
Citing Article 12 of the Constitution, Picop stated: "all lands of the public domain, waters, minerals, coal, petroleum, and other mineral oils, forest or timber and other natural resources are owned by the state. With the exception of agricultural lands, all other natural resources shall not be alienated."
"By restating the legal doctrine that forest reserves are not the subject of private appropriation and recognizing the validity of the contract with presidential warranty signed by Picop, the Supreme Court will avert the possibility that 12 million hectares of the country's land area will not in any manner be divided into independent enclaves through the issuance of CADTs," Picop said.
Picop is also questioning the propriety by which the government entered into a deal with ZTE's investment arm, ZTE International Investments Ltd., to tap the Diwalwal Gold Rush Area, despite a subsisting court injunction at that time.
It said Malacañang signed its memorandum of understanding with the controversial Chinese firm to explore Diwalwal Gold Rush despite a decision and mandatory injunction by a Quezon City Regional Trial Court-Branch 20 ordering the government to respect its contract with Picop over forest reserves, which included the Diwalwal area.
Earlier this month, a ruling by the SC in another case has agreed to take up en banc court a plea to reconsider a 2006 SC division ruling that cancelled all mining rights and operations of Filipino firms in the Diwalwal Gold Rush Area in Compostela Valley.
That 2006 ruling had paved the way for the government through Trade Secretary Peter Favila to enter into a "cooperative agreement" with ZTE to mine gold in the Diwalwal site instead of the local firms while the appeal of local firms involved in the case was still pending. (ECV/Sunnex)
