ROSARIO, Agusan del Sur (MindaNews / 29 May) – Police arrested a barangay chairman from Quezon City and 20 other men who forced their way inside the administration building of a gold mining company in this town.
Capt. Kristopher Niel Nono, chief of the Municipal Police Station here, said Joseph Mahusay, the chairman of Barangay Pansol in Quezon City, led a convoy of 11 cars that sneaked through the gate by tailing the dump trucks that were carrying ores.
Company guards failed to stop Mahusay and his companions from entering the building.
Police who arrived at the building brought Mahusay and his men to the police station where they were interrogated for hours.
Police investigators said they found three Glock 17 pistols and ammunition hidden in one of the cars, one of which belonged to a policeman who failed to present an authority to act as escort or security detail.
Lawyer Luis Sy, Philsaga Mining Corp. (PMC) legal counsel, said they will initially charge Mahusay and his escorts with trespassing while further investigation of the company’s security personnel is going on.
The police, meanwhile, were preparing to file a case related to the discovery of firearms in one of the cars used by Mahusay and his men.
Sy said Mahusay’s entry was illegal since the court order that he brought to serve to PMC executives inside the building was just a plea that the pending case against PMC President Raul C. Villanueva be transferred to an appropriate court.
The order stemmed from a writ of injunction at a Davao City court filed by Mahusay against Villanueva for continuing to act as PMC president and member of the board of directors even if he already sold to Mahusay his shares of stocks with Philsaga Management and Holdings amounting to 125,000 common shares.
It was the second time that a court order was served at the PMC administration building. The first was only received outside the well-secured gate as the court sheriff was not allowed to get inside.
Judge Rowena Apao-Adlawan, 1st vice executive judge and presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court in Davao City issued the TRO.
Villanueva has earlier said the move was meant to prevent him from performing his functions, and allegedly perpetrated by the company’s Australian partner X64 to eventually take over PMC.
PMC accused Jeff McGlinn, managing director of Ten Sixty Four (ASX: X64) Limited, who holds 40 percent of PMC shares, as behind the moves to remove Villanueva.
Mahusay, who was installed by McGlinn to replace Villanueva as president claimed the latter continued to act as PMC president and member of the board of directors even if he already sold to Mahusay his shares of stocks with Philsaga Management and Holdings amounting to 125,000 common shares.
But Villanueva denied he sold his share of stocks to Mahusay, saying the documents were fabricated.He said several lapses were found in the document, including the forged signature of the notary public, which Villanueva claimed is enough ground to file a case against Mahusay. (Chris V. Panganiban/MindaNews)
