BAGUIO CITY—Gold and copper producer Philex Mining Corp. and the police charged two men and an activist with arson and robbery with intimidation in connection with the Feb. 9 burning of two trucks in Itogon town in Benguet province.
The Philex employees were not harmed when armed men stopped them from delivering copper ore from the company’s Padcal mine to La Union.
The robbery complaint referred to the handguns of the mine security guards that were allegedly confiscated during the attack.
Among those charged was Sarah Abellon-Alikes, board director of a disaster relief and livelihood support group called Kaduami (Katinnulong Daguitti Umili iti Amianan Inc.), whose arrest drew the ire of activists.
“Sarah is incapable of doing this crime … She has been in development work all her life,” said Bishop Elorde Sambat of United Church of Christ in the Philippines, who chairs Kaduami.
Sambat said Alikes is the daughter of the late Bishop Richard Abellon Sr. of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines.
Sambat also said the Duterte administration should stop human rights violations “if Sarah’s illegal arrest and detention [was] part of the government’s continuing harassment of development workers.” —KIMBERLIE QUITASOL AND VILLAMOR VISAYA JR.