Stealthy presence
Yet another report of illegal Chinese workers apprehended by Philippine authorities during a raid on a suspicious business enterprise has made the news. That hardly raises eyebrows nowadays, the country having gone through years of progressively worse stories about Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) functioning as criminal hubs while staffed with mini-armies of undocumented Chinese nationals, and the astonishing Alice Guo saga, in which the mayor of a second-class municipality in Tarlac turned out to be a Chinese immigrant with counterfeit Filipino citizenship.
But the recent report about a raided steel manufacturing facility in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental that yielded 69 illegal Chinese workers stood out for the sheer number of red flags in the details.
For one, the Philippine Sanjia-Steel Corp. plant is located inside the 3,000-hectare Phividec Industrial Estate, one of the country’s largest industrial estates, managed by the government-owned and controlled corporation Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corp. Industrial Authority. Crucially, overseeing this special economic zone is the Department of National Defense (DND), because the estate’s revenues are, by law, used to support and provide for veterans and retirees of the armed forces.
Radioactive material
Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. himself was present at the raid on Sanjia-Steel, accompanied by Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) executive director Benjamin Acorda Jr. and operatives of PAOCC, the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Philippine Army.
The rationale for raiding Sanjia-Steel was that it was allegedly processing hazardous materials that posed a risk to the environment. The hazard proved to be more than commonplace; according to the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, “radioactive material” was found in some areas of the plant, matching “the presence of naturally occurring radioactive thorium.” Was it a manufacturing byproduct, or evidence of some other suspicious activity within the facility?
The apprehended Chinese workers seemed to know that they were handling dangerous material. They were found to be wearing protective gear, while the facility’s 120 Filipino workers weren’t given any.
Immediate questions come to mind: What are dozens of undocumented Chinese workers doing in a complex under the purview of the DND? Who gave them entry to such a strategic facility tied to the country’s national security interests? Why was radioactive material detected in the site, and what was it used for? What exactly were the Chinese nationals working on?
Suspected entry point
The alarming implications thicken when Sanjia-Steel’s ownership is looked into. The manufacturing plant is one of the registered businesses of Tony Yang, also known as Yang Jian Xin. The longtime businessman based in Cagayan de Oro is currently in jail on charges of perjury and falsification of public documents. He had admitted before Congress that he was a Chinese national who acquired bogus Filipino citizenship to establish companies in the country and secure documents issued only to Filipinos such as a tax identification number and a birth certificate.
Yang was also linked by authorities to a Pogo operated by Guo, who like him had passed herself off as a bona fide Filipino citizen. And he is the older brother of Yang Hong Ming aka Michael Yang, who became an economic adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte despite concerns voiced by some quarters that he could be working for Chinese intelligence operations in the country.
This is not the first time Sanjia-Steel has been involved in controversy. In 2024, a construction industry watchdog identified it as among several local producers of substandard reinforced steel bars or rebars. The Tagoloan steel mill compound, which includes a wharf, was also mentioned in previous reports as a suspected entry point for contraband such as rice and other goods traded by Yang’s businesses, and even illegal drugs.
National security risk
Despite this shady track record, and Yang’s very imprisonment, Sanjia-Steel has somehow been allowed to continue to operate. Whoever is behind it apparently remains powerful enough that the company could facilitate the entry of Chinese nationals with fake identities into government-owned land and infrastructure with particular value to the country’s industrial and defense establishments.
The national security risk rises with the revelation by Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla that the plant was in proximity to a Philippine Navy dry dock under construction inside the Phividec estate. Could that explain the stealthy, illicit presence of scores of Chinese nationals working in the compound?
Teodoro said the steel plant “will remain closed until the courts decide what to do with it.” He shouldn’t stop with closure, but should spearhead an exhaustive probe into the site’s links to foreign criminal networks and, who knows, perhaps even outright spying by a hostile neighbor.
