‘Radioactive’ materials found in raided plant
TAGOLOAN, MISAMIS ORIENTAL—While waiting to be documented by authorities on Monday, “Al,” a man in his 30s, told the Inquirer that he and other workers have not felt anything wrong with their bodies so far, in the years working at the plant operated here by Philippine Sanjia-Steel Corp., where experts have found “radiologically contaminated steel” in the premises.
Al and his coworkers said they were not bothered about the alleged hazards detected at the plant, following last week’s raid that resulted in the arrest of least 69 Chinese nationals.
After all, Al said, “we are still here and very much alive.”
“Frankly, what we are worried about is losing our jobs and finding new ones; Sanjia pays well,” Al said in an interview. Three other workers nearby agreed.
Search warrant
In a briefing held in Metro Manila on Tuesday, Undersecretary Benjamin Acorda, executive director of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), said experts from the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) had found radioactive materials in different parts of the plant, indicating a serious hazard faced by its workers as well as environmental risks to the community.
Teresa Salabit, PNRI radiation safeguards and security specialist, said the plant’s raw materials “have matched the presence of naturally occurring radioactive thorium.”
“The radioactive materials that are present in the site have already been contained, have been marked and will be turned over to the authorities as evidence,” Salabit told reporters at Camp Crame via teleconference.
Supported by Army, Coast Guard and Air Force teams, agents of the National Bureau of Investigation joined the PAOCC officials on Friday last week in serving a search warrant issued by a Cagayan de Oro City court on Sanjia for alleged violations of immigration, labor and nuclear safety regulations.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the bureau received a tip about the violations in March, and managed to obtain a warrant following a closer investigation of the 22.6-hectare Sanjia compound inside the 3,000-ha Phividec Industrial Estate.
The raid led to the arrest of 69 Chinese nationals and a Filipino who Acorda said controlled the plant operations. Matibag said authorities “rescued” 120 Filipino workers at the factory.
Among Sanjia’s incorporators and chief stockholder is Chinese businessman Tony Yang, who was arrested in September 2024 for alleged involvement in illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogo) and falsifying his identity.
No protective gear
Tony Yang is the older brother of Michael Yang, who served as economic adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The Yang siblings have also been linked to Philippine offshore gaming operators, according to the NBI.
“The Filipino workers, they’re not wearing protective gear. But the Chinese nationals we caught, they’re wearing protective gear. So, there’s already the idea that this company, they knew that there was radioactive material… That’s why we used the term rescued,” Matibag said.
Acorda noted that the workers “were exposed to dangerous materials without adequate protection.”
In interviews with the Inquirer, some of them admitted that the plant’s safety measures tend to be lax—except at the furnace area where they are strictly required to put on protective gear.
Citing a PNRI report, Matibag said radioactive materials were found in the plant’s production zones, waste disposal site, dust bins, warehouses and steel products.
PNRI experts said Sanjia’s steel manufacturing process uses the radioactive materials, hence their detection in the steel bars produced.
Acorda said that as of Tuesday, the court-sanctioned search was ongoing and authorities had already accounted for at least a million metric tons of “radiologically contaminated” rebars.
At the Crame briefing, Bernadette Velasco, Health Emergency Management Bureau director of the Department of Health, said none of the Filipino workers rescued has so far shown any acute symptoms of radiation exposure.
Trace quantities
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), natural thorium is present in trace quantities in virtually all rock, soil, water, plants and animals.
Thorium is used to make ceramics, welding rods, camera and telescope lenses, fire brick, heat resistant paint and metals used in the aerospace industry, as well as in nuclear reactions, it added.
“Since thorium is naturally present in the environment, people are exposed to tiny amounts in air, food and water. The amounts are usually very small and pose little health hazard… However, people who live near thorium mining areas or near certain legacy industrial facilities may have increased exposure to thorium,” the EPA said on its website.
Inhaling thorium dust may cause an increased risk of developing lung or bone cancer, it said.
Acorda said the source of the radioactive materials is the subject of an ongoing investigation.
On Saturday, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said Sanjia “could be paying its workers well because it is hiding something serious from them.”
Col. Francel Margareth Padilla, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the plant’s proximity to a Philippine Navy dry dock under construction inside the Phividec Industrial Estate raised additional security concerns.
“And so this raises a national security risk as well as an environmental concern,” she said. —WITH A REPORT FROM GABRYELLE DUMALAG
