Raided Davao steel plant found posing radioactive hazards

DAVAO CITY, Philippines —Authorities on Friday confirmed the presence of radioactive hazards inside a steel manufacturing plant that they raided at Barangay Ilang in Bunawan district here, the third facility where government teams found such hazardous materials.

According to Undersecretary Benjamin Acorda, executive director of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (Paocc), personnel from the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) detected “radioactive isotopes” in reinforcing steel bars produced by Davao Mighty Steel Corp. (DMS) as well as in different parts of its manufacturing facility.

“Technical examinations confirmed the presence of radioactive isotopes, including Uranium-238, Thorium-228, Thorium-232 and Radium-226, across different stages and areas of the company’s operations. These were documented in finished DMS rebars, furnace-related materials, residual black sand, industrial powders, dust, waste, wastewater, and other production and stored materials,” a Paocc report said, citing PNRI findings.

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Acorda said the radioactive materials “posed risks of continued occupational exposure” to DMS workers.

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He noted that based on a PNRI certification, the company and its identified officers and personnel “did not possess the required license or authority to acquire, receive, possess, use, store, sell, transfer, import, or export nuclear or radioactive materials.”

Paocc, however, withheld the identities of the company owner and its officers.

According to Assistant Secretary Felix Alicer of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the agency has been conducting regular inspections on the DMS facility but their personnel are not capable of detecting radioactive materials.

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He also said the environmental compliance certificate issued to DMS did not authorize the presence, handling, processing, storage, or use of radioactive materials within its facility.

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Monthlong surveillance

On a search warrant issued by a local court, the DMS plant was raided on Thursday by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation and Paocc, with assistance from the PNRI, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine Air Force, and the Philippine Army’s 10th Infantry Division.

NBI Director Melvin Matibag told reporters here on Friday that it had taken them at least a month to do surveillance work on the DMS facility following reports that it was manufacturing and distributing substandard steel bars.

Tests conducted on DMS rebars purchased from commercial hardware establishments across Mindanao showed that four of eight samples, or 50 percent, failed the “mandatory mass-variation requirement under PNS (Philippine National Standard) 49:2020,” which is set by the Bureau of Philippine Standards.

Collapsed structures

Paocc said the NBI also documented DMS-marked reinforcing steel bars in the rubble of structures that collapsed following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Mindanao on June 8.

The collapsed structures included schools, hospitals, government buildings, barangay health centers and houses in provinces of Sarangani, Davao del Sur and Davao Occidental.

“We have to protect the public of the hazards and the danger of this substandard and hazardous products that are entering into the market,” Matibag said.

Paocc, however, stressed that the presence of DMS rebars in the collapsed structures “does not by itself establish that the steel caused their collapse.”

“Determining the cause of the structural failures remains subject to appropriate engineering assessment,” it added.

Matibag said DMS was the fifth steel manufacturer that government teams had inspected for alleged production of substandard rebars this year. One is in Bulacan, two in Pampanga and another in Misamis Oriental.

The steel plants in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, and in Magalang, Pampanga, yielded radioactive materials.

Workers rescued

Acorda said that during Thursday’s raid, authorities were able to “rescue” a total of 174 DMS workers “from an industrial environment subsequently found to contain radioactive-bearing materials, dust, fumes, wastes, and production residues.”

Authorities are looking at charges against the plant owner for alleged violations of the Philippine National Nuclear Energy Safety Act, the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act, the Philippine Environmental Impact Statement System, and the Consumer Act.

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Matibag said all workers would be subjected to health check to determine the physical impact of their exposure to radioactive materials. —WITH A REPORT FROM JASON SIGALES