SMI should stop funding gov’t forces in Tampakan mining site—Bayan Muna
By Lorie Ann Cascaro, Minda News
February 24, 2013

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/23 February)— Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares urged Saturday the national government to order the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the local government units (LGU) to stop accepting money from foreign-backed Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI) to fund the deployment of government forces in the mining tenement.

In a statement, Colmenares said that Mayor Marivic Diamante of Kiblawan in Davao del Sur and Col. Marcos Norman Flores of the 1002nd Infantry Brigade admitted in a congressional hearing early this week in Koronadal City that the company is allegedly giving between P180,000 to P850,000 a month for the deployment of soldiers and militiamen in the mines development site.

Diamante has expressed her support to the mining project of SMI.

“Now the cat is out of the bag. This explains why the Army and its CAFGUs (Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit) are so obsessed with eliminating the opposition to mining because they will lose millions if SMI-Xstrata’s operations [will] stop,” Colmenares said.

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