Armed Employees Of Canadian Mining Firm Tvi Pacific Beat Subanon Leader's Daughter
Published by MAC on 2007-02-01Source: DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMI)
Armed Employees of Canadian Mining Firm TVI Pacific Beat Subanon Leader’s Daughter
by: Tito Natividad Fiel, DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMI)
1st February 2007
Mount Canatuan, Tabayo, Siocon Zamboanga del Norte – Contrary to the continuous public relation efforts of the Canadian mining company, TVI Pacific, to portray itself as a responsible miner, it still cannot detach itself from employing violence.
On January 30, TVI’s paramilitary force, the Special Citizen Armed Geographical Unit Active Auxiliary (SCAA), shamelessly and senselessly attacked the daughter of Timuay Jose ‘Boy’ Anoy, the legitimate holder of the local Subanon’s Ancestral Domain Claim.
The DIOPIM Committee on Mining Issues (DCMI), a church committee in the Zamboanga Peninsula monitoring mining, identified the victim as Vivian Anoy Balingit, 29 years of age, married and a resident of Mount Canatuan, and daughter of Timuay Anoy.
The victim swore an affidavit identifying her attackers as Edgar Acalindo and Elmar Alfaro, together with two other unidentified people.
Her sworn statement states that at about 5:30 in the afternoon on January 30, she, her husband Reymar, her sister Florenda Anoy, and three children were travelling from Sitio Paduan to their home at Mount Canatuan.
She noted that when they passed the road constructed by TVI, the said SCAA barred them from passing, stating that the company owns the road rather than the residents from the area, and therefore ordered them to pass through the forested area.
“I defied the order of the said SCAA and instead I continued walking”, she explained on her affidavit, but the said SCAA pushed her and aimed their guns towards her and again ordered them to pass through the forested area.
Due to the victim’s defiance, Edgar Acalindo aimed his gun towards Vivian and told her that he will shoot her if she will not obey his command. However, she strongly defied him, saying “Shoot me”.
“Acalindo touched the barrel of his gun to my stomach, then shoulder then on my right temple but I parried the gun through my left hand, but the perpetrator pursue[d] it causing the abrasion of my left eye”, she strongly stressed on her affidavit.
Florenda Anoy, who witnessed the incident, confirmed the abuse perpetrated by the identified TVI SCAA on her own affidavit. Medical tests in the Municipality of Siocon also confirmed the abrasion on the left eye of the victim.
In 1999, TVI was notoriously accused of harassment for dispersing a legitimate protest of the affected communities in Mount Canatuan that resulted serious and several human rights violations.
On March 2004, TVI SCAA shamelessly, senselessly and indiscriminately fired their guns towards protestors, causing injuries to 70 year old Subanon Chieftain Timuay Macario Salacao.
On June 2006, around one hundred SCAA of the company senselessly and shamelessly demolished the house of the family of Mr. Floro and Manolita Galves in the early hours of the morning without the necessary legal authority.