I don't know if it's a case of intuition, foresight or experience but when we were awarded a project in Mindanao I decided that principally due to the security risks I would make the centre of our operations remote from the project. There were other considerations: the possibility of several projects on the go at the same time meant that it would be more cost effective to have one administration centre, rather than one on each project; not having to move our office from project to project with an ever increasing amount of documentation and not having to dismantle and reassemble the IT set up definitely has it it's benefits
It wasn't a popular decision with the hierarchy but to me it made sense on so many levels. I don't visit the project sites on a daily basis and don't really have the need to as we have a good team to manage the site works. I'm here for the project management and administration, not the day to day site management.
As you may be aware (if you've read earlier postings), to date I have visited the site in Mindanao (Taganito) on several occasions (I usually refer to it as Kidnap Central) in order to attend meetings, do presentations and generally take an overview of the site and how things are progressing. I do think it's good to show your face to the workers and site staff occasionally, rather than being perceived as being a remote entity with the danger of appearing aloof from the coal face. But my visitations have been scarce, partly due to it being a nigh on 3 day turnaround to get there and back from Subic, and hence my exposure to any security risk or threat has been minimised.
My understanding was that the significant threat was from a Moslem group called Abu-Sayyaf, whose modus operandi consists primarily of kidnapping foreigners for ransom and the occasional bomb attack.
What I didn't figure into the equation was the communist NPA (New People's Army) who decided to pay a visit to the project site in force last Monday morning (2nd Oct) and proceeded to wreck havoc. You can read the press reports here:
From what I was told by our guys on site, around 200 "soldiers" of the NPA, consisting largely of 15, 16, 17 year olds carrying Armalite rifles, walked onto the site and immediately started to round up all the foreigners (mainly Japanese and Taiwanese) and herded them into one of the site offices. Without doubt this would have caused some considerable anxiety. The Filipino workers were told not to worry as the NPA were "against the corporations and not the people" - although that didn't stop them from reportedly shooting and killing 3 security guards in the process.
They then proceeded to set fire to significant items of equipment, including dump trucks, cranes, barges and lorries and burnt down buildings and set fire to equipment. And just for good measure they smashed all the computers. We were incredibly fortunate in that most of our equipment was spared and the only damage we sustained was a bullet through the radiator and fuel tank of our crane lorry.
Below are photos of the site in the aftermath:
The photo above is where they tried to blow up the boiler house for the power station. They only succeeded in wrecking one of the legs and the structure remained standing.
Then when they had finished their acts of wanton vandalism, the NPA left the site apparently completely unmolested and with no attempt by the Philippine army or police to engage or counter attack them, thereby giving them a free hand to do exactly what they wanted, which amongst the cynical might lead them to suggest that the local police, politicians and army were complicit in the attacks. Or were hiding under their beds
Once the NPA had left the locals population proceeded to loot the site. Really, there is no hope.
The consensus of opinion is that the NPA are running a protection racket and because the mine owners either didn't or wouldn't pay they incurred the wrath of the supposed commies.
In the past, the mine owners had shipped all the raw materials to Japan for processing. However, they had undertaken to do processing at the site, investing considerable sums of money in the building of a processing plant and power station, thus providing employment to a considerable number of locals. At best that has now been significantly delayed and at worst will be cancelled. Well done to the communist NPA, who purport to support the poor and exploited workers but have in affect removed the possibility of many earning a living or at best, caused many to lose wages as the mining operation have been suspended pending a review of security and replacement of damaged equipment.
In all this, the government has been conspicuous in its absence. I wonder if they will be compensating the mine owners for their damage and losses as surely this is an issue of national security. I very much doubt it.
For us, we're now left without a project to work on and we've had to stand down the vast majority of our labour. It will certainly be weeks, if not months before the site gets back to some semblance of normality but in the meantime we'll just be twiddling our thumbs and wasting money in the process.
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