Lawmaker, LP financier face raps

MANILA, Philippines — A stalwart and a top financier of the Liberal Party are facing criminal charges for allegedly using fake documents to dupe the government and their business partners of billions of pesos in mining revenues.

Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice and LP financier Patrick Angelo “Eric” Gutierrez were charged with falsification of public documents, which they allegedly used to cart away P2.8 billion in revenues from unauthorized operations of their mining firm SR Metals Inc.

Rodney Basiana, a small-scale miner from Agusan del Norte, filed the complaint against Erice, Gutierrez, John Anthony Gutierrez, Miguel Alberto  Gutierrez, Alejandro Basalio and Antonio Dimabayu before the Surigao City prosecutor’s office.

A copy of the complaint was obtained by reporters from the Department of Justice yesterday.

Basiana accused the respondents, who were all officers and members of the SR Metals board in 2005, of making it appear that their corporation was the holder of mining claims over an 81-hectare area in Tubay, Agusan del Norte.

Basiana said it was his company, Basiana Mining Exploration Corp. (BMEC), that owned the mining rights in the contested area.

Basiana claimed BMEC had a small-scale mining application for Tubay dated July 31, 1997 and paid the corresponding application fee of P5,520 on the same date.

In August 2000, BMEC assigned its rights over its mining application to Manila Mining Corp. (MMC) with the express provision that notwithstanding the agreement, it remained the real and true owner of the application and it could revoke the agreement anytime.

In October 2005, BMEC revoked its deed of assignment to MMC and executed a deed of assignment over its mining application in favor of SR Metals, then headed by Erice and Eric Gutierrez.

Under the same agreement, SR Metals confirmed and recognized Basiana’s ownership of the mining claims and granted him five percent of the gross proceeds of the sales of the mining yields as may be extracted.

As a result, SR Metals was granted permit and resumed mining operations in the villages of La Fraternidad, Binuangan and Sta. Ana in Tubay.

But the company reneged on its obligation to remit five percent to Basiana.

Basiana found out that Erice and Gutierrez forged his mining application and official receipt by making it appear that it was SR Metals that applied and paid for the application fee in July 1997.

He said SR Metals could not possibly apply for MPSA in 1997 because it was organized and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission only in May 2005.

“The MPSA application – executed and signed by Erice on July 7, 2006 – are false and untruthful and was intended to cause injury and damage to BMEC and my family,” Basiana said in his complaint.

On Nov. 23, 2007, BMEC counsel Teresita Marbibi wrote to Julian Amador, DENR-EMB director, informing him about the falsified document filed by SR Metals, which was supposedly signed by Erice on July 31, 1997.

Marbibi told Amador that SR Metals was registered with the SEC only on May 10, 2005 with authorized capital stock of P40 million.

Despite the alleged fake documents, SR Metals was able to engage not only in small-scale but also large-scale mining operations in Tubay.

Basiana sought to nullify SR Metals’ application in February 2008.

Then environment secretary Lito Atienza ignored Basiana’s motion and issued a new MPSA in favor of SR Metals, using as basis the spurious documents.