(UPDATE) Nueva Vizcaya village chief in mining row shot dead
By Melvin Gascon
Northern Luzon Bureau, Agence France-Presse
First Posted 11:08:00 05/30/2008
Filed Under: Environmental Issues, Protest, Local authorities, Mining and quarrying, Murder
CAMP SATURNINO DUMLAO, Nueva Vizcaya -- The chief of a remote upland village in Kasibu town was gunned down Thursday night after trying to mediate in a tax dispute between an Australian mining project and the provincial government, police said Friday.
Superintendent Domingo Lucas, acting provincial police director, said Paulino Baguilat, 55, village chief of Didipio, was shot and killed by unidentified assailants while on his way home to the village center.
His bloodied body was found by neighbors late Thursday in a forest between the hamlet and the mine.
Lucas and a police team went to Didipio on Friday to investigate the crime.
Didipio, a village of about 200 residents, has been deeply divided due to the large-scale mining project being proposed in the area by Australian firm OceanaGold Philippines Inc.
Chief Inspector Peter Cambri told Agence France-Presse (AFP) authorities were checking whether the killing was linked to the mine dispute.
Baguilat, who used to work as a community relations officer of the firm, had been supporting the project but faced stiff opposition from a majority of the Didipio village council.
The victim's wife, Elma Baguilat, suggested to AFP she knew why her husband was killed, but added: "Speaking out here is dangerous."
Provincial government officials had arrived at the minesite Thursday with orders to shut it down from Nueva Vizcaya Governor Luisa Cuaresma, who alleges the local administration is owed local taxes and quarrying fees, according to Oceana Gold.
The minesite manager rejected the order, citing a ruling last week by the national government that the Nueva Vizcaya tax demand was illegal, the mine's assistant general manager Gil Maglaque told AFP.
Oceana Gold officials and the governor's representatives then held talks at the Didipio village hall with Baguilat as mediator.
But the talks were inconclusive and the local officials left after failing to shut down the mine, Maglaque added.
The $320-million Didipio project, in a mountain range near Kasibu, north of Manila, employs many of Baguilat's neighbors for mine construction activities ahead of production, which is scheduled to start in 2010.
Baguilat was also a former Oceana Gold employee who quit last year to run for public office, his widow said.
Oceana Gold describes the deposits as "one of the highest grade gold-copper porphyries in the world," and the Philippine government is expecting some 700 million dollars in tax revenues over the mine's life span.
Manila expects the mining sector to grow five-fold in the next four years, with cumulative new investments expected to rise to 10.4 billion dollars by 2011.
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