Aquino Administration Falls for Fake E-mail, Puts Foreign Mining Firm Through the Wringer

AQUINO ADMINISTRATION FALLS FOR FAKE E-MAIL AND PUTS A CANADIAN MINING FIRM THROUGH THE WRINGER.

If there’s still space, chalk this one up under “Monumental Malacanang Fuck Up” and “More Funny Ways to Scare Foreign Investors”.

Here’s the gist: Someone writes to the Aquino Administration reporting that a foreign mining firm was plotting to kill a bunch of small miners. Along with the letter was documentation on what appears to be a series of e-mails circulated within the foreign mining firm’s. The series of e-mail exchanges describe a plot to kill a bunch of poor small scale miners.

I don’t know if President Benigno S. Aquino crapped himself if ever he did personally read the letter or the emails, because it would have seemed to describe the perfect opportunity for the Aquino Administration to play Captain Planet along with a retinue of Mac wielding Planeteers.

A line in one e-mail even read, “We must plan this carefully. I want him lifeless before November 1.”

After being black-balled by both pro-mining and anti-mining advocates for weeks before his latest State of the Nation Address, we imagine Aquino anticipating the accolades he would receive in the Halls of Philippine Congress upon saying that his administration had prevented another Gerry Ortega from happening. (Which would probably have Gina Lopez shivering with delight.)

I don’t know if the report of this fantastic opportunity to play Planet-Do-Gooder got reviewed or analyzed first, given the rash of URGENT e-mails from friends claiming they were stranded moneyless in a strange city, but it would have probably stalled what in retrospect appears to be an ill-advised order to have the foreign mining firm investigated on the basis of unverified e-mail evidence.

Yesterday, no less than the National Bureau of Investigation (an agency the Aquino Administration could have called on to verify the e-mails before investigating the mining firm) revealed that the e-mails were FAKE.

Here’s a couple of excerpts and links on that story:

From Interaksyon

TVI Resource Development (Phils.) Inc. on Monday revealed it had been framed, in an elaborate plot using fake emails, to make it appear its executives were part of a murder conspiracy against small-scale miners in the South. Such fake emails, which it said were confirmed by a subsequent NBI inquiry, had fanned its conflict with small miners and sparked a series of attacks on the Canadian firm in Zamboanga del Sur.

TVIRD, which has been faced with property conflicts in Balabag, Zamboanga del Sur, hired Pacific Strategies & Assessments (PSA), a security consultancy firm, to investigate the events that led to the alleged “coordinated attacks” against the mining firm.

The Canadian miner revealed both the NBI report and that of the private PSA in a news conference on Monday in Manila.

According to PSA’s special report “Foreign Investment Under Fire in the Philippines”, the problem started with Monte Oro Small Scale Miners Association (MOSSMA) and other affiliates allegedly claiming they have the right to mine areas that were under the Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) of TVIRD.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau later ordered the small-scale miners to halt operations in Balabag as they had failed to obtain authorization under the People’s Small Scale Mining Act of 1991.

From Mindanao Examiner:

The Philippines’ premier law enforcement agency together with international security experts have uncovered a plot to influence President Benigno Aquino III, his top officials and government agencies against a Canadian company with major investments in the country.

The National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) report declaring as “maliciously created” a set of emails that were used as in reports submitted to the Office of the President, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje and other Cabinet Secretaries, heads of government agencies including the National Security Commission (NSC), private institutions, military and police officers and the media, against TVIRD, the Philippine affiliate of Canadian mining firm TVIRD.

“The emails…did not come from the authentic source (TVI) and are maliciously created,” NBI Agent Francis V. Senora concluded in his July 13, 2012 Memorandum.

The fake emails were circulated earlier this year supposedly implicating TVIRD executives and other individuals in a murder and other criminal conspiracies against illegal miners in Balabag, Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur.

Click here for the NBI’s official report on the fake TVIRD emails. Click here for the report from PSA.

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