Authorities seize ‘radioactive, substandard’ steel at Davao City plant
MANILA, Philippines —Law enforcement agencies in the Philippines seized suspected radioactive and substandard steel reinforcement bars during a raid on a manufacturing facility in Davao City, according to a Friday statement from the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).
The PAOCC stated that Thursday’s operation was carried out via a search warrant. This followed a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) inquiry into accusations that the facility located in Barangay Ilang, Bunawan, manufactured and distributed defective steel bars.
“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,” the task force noted.
“These were documented in finished ‘DMS’ rebars, furnace-related materials, residual black sand, industrial powders, dust, wastes, wastewater, and other production and stored materials,” it further explained.
PAOCC said operatives “rescued” 174 Filipinos working at the plant.
This “[removed] them from an industrial environment subsequently found to contain radioactive-bearing materials, dust, fumes, wastes, and production residues that posed risks of continued occupational exposure,” it maintained.
Further, the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute certified that the company that owned the plant had no license to acquire, receive, possess, use, store, sell, transfer, import or export nuclear or radioactive materials, the PAOCC added.
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Likewise, according to the commission, an inspection by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources found that the company’s environmental compliance certificate did not authorize them to handle, process, store or use radioactive materials in the plant.
Davao steel bars tested
PAOCC also noted that the recovered reinforcing steel bars underwent product-standard testing.
“Of eight samples purchased from commercial hardware establishments across Mindanao, four, or 50 percent, failed the mandatory mass-variation requirement under PNS (Philippine National Standard) 49:2020,” it detailed.
PNS 49:2020 is set by the Bureau of Philippine Standards for reinforcing steel bars.
The commission noted that the recovery of the allegedly radioactive and substandard reinforcing steel bars were in the public interest, citing that NBI investigators had found “DMS”-marked reinforcing steel bars supposedly in the rubble of structures that collapsed during the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that shook Mindanao last June 8.
“Authorities stressed, however, that the presence of DMS rebars in the collapsed structures does not by itself establish that the steel caused their collapse,” the commission noted.
“Determining the cause of the structural failures remains subject to appropriate engineering assessment,” it added.
According to the commission, the NBI has referred a case against the company that owned the plant for allegedly violating the following:
- Republic Act No. 12305 or the Philippine National Nuclear Energy Safety Act
- RA No. 6969 or the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act
- Presidential Decree No. 1586 or the Philippine Environmental Impact Statement System
- RA No. 7394 or the Consumer Act
The PAOCC did not immediately say whether any arrests were made as a result of the operation or how much the seized evidence was valued. /mr
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