“All these are a welcome development in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s program of pursuing peace in Mindanao. With the assumption of a private agency of the security function in Canatuan from the AFP, the SCAA unit currently assigned in that area can be commissioned elsewhere to continue its peacemaking mission. Meanwhile, TVIRD will be able to continue its economic and social development initiatives for the Subanons, unhampered by unwarranted accusations of militarization,” Dureza added.

 

Since the deployment of SCAA forces in 2002, the people in Canatuan have been enjoying the  benefits of peace and security, but under a military umbrella,” explained Atty Eugene Mateo, TVIRD President. “However, both TVIRD and the Government believe that the economic development brought by the Canatuan mining project, coupled with our joint efforts to extend Government services to an area previously underrepresented, now enable us to demilitarize security and assist in normalizing the previously conflict affected community.”

 

Added Feliece Yeban, TVIRD Vice President for Social Commitments: “This conversion is also linked to our human rights initiatives. No one, anywhere, likes a situation where the use of a military auxiliary unit is required to secure an area. Predictably, some elements of the SCAA have, in fact, been accused of human rights violations in the conduct of their duties. We have conducted human rights training for the SCAA personnel, and we have done our best to ensure proper conduct by the SCAA even when they are being deliberately provoked by confrontational individuals and organizations linked to the illegal mining operations of the past. But ultimately, we and the Government and Civil Society all believe that social progress involves the establishment of civilian processes, including police and justice institutions, in all parts of our country.”

 

After two ambush incidents occurred near its project site on March 13, 2002 and December 26, 2002 that resulted in the death of 15 and injuries to TVIRD personnel and their relatives, mostly Subanon, TVIRD and the Government believed that deployment of SCAA security was necessary for the company to protect itself, its employees, and its community from criminal and terrorist elements who threaten to harm not only the company’s physical assets but, more importantly, its on-site personnel.

TVI has invested more than $25 million in developing the Canatuan gold-silver project TVIRD and is currently investing an additional $23 million for its copper-zinc expansion project, expected to be operational within the first half of 2008.

 

SCAA units were established under the auspices of Section 4, Article XVI of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, following former President Corazon Aquino’s Executive Order 264 and its subsequent Implementing Rules and Regulations. More than half of the SCAA elements in Canatuan are Subanons themselves.