By CHRIS V. PANGANIBAN
ROSARIO, Agusan del Sur— The fate of the so called “self-proclaimed” Filipino president of a gold mining company based here hangs in the balance after his Australian benefactor who was reportedly behind moves to oust the company’s incumbent president was booted out from his post as managing director of the company’s Australian partner.
Because of the situation, Joseph Mahusay, barangay chair of Pansol in Quezon City who asserted he is the new president of Philsaga Mining Corp. (PMC) in the last four months, would be in dire straits being a protégé of Jeff McGlinn, the managing director of Ten Sixty Four Ltd. (X64) who resigned as its managing director along with three other non-executive directors before they lost in the election in the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on June 19.
Mahusay claimed McGlinn appointed him the position as new PMC president.
EGM is a shareholder meeting called other than a company’s scheduled annual general meeting (AGM). An EGM is also called a special general meeting or emergency general meeting.
Lawyer Raul C. Villanueva, Philsaga Mining Corp. president, replies queries to the local media at the press conference. Photo courtesy of Joel Almine
McGlinn and three other non-executive directors Kate George, Simon Mottram and Andrew Hunt flagged their exit before the EGM sensing their unsuccessful campaign for their retention and indeed the result showed some 114 million voted for their rejection while only about 32 million votes agreed for their retention.
Lawyer Raul C. Villanueva, PMC president, welcomed the development even as he vowed to pursue more civil and criminal complaints against Mahusay and McGlinn for allegedly including violation of Anti-Dummy Law, violation of Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, violation of Anti-Money Laudering Law and Violation of Ethical Standards and Practices.
Lawyer Glenn Sorilla, PMC board secretary, said complaints of alarm and scandal, perjury and falsification of documents were already lodged against Mahusay.
The cases stemmed from the forceable entry of him and his supporters at the gate of the company’s administration building in Barangay Bayugan 3 on May 29 of this town on board a convoy of cars bringing a legal document supposedly his new post as company president but turned out to be just a court order in Davao City for the transfer to another court on his pending case against Villanueva regarding his claims that he already took over the lead in the company management.
The other case Mahusay is facing on perjury and falsification of documents was about the deed of assignment he submitted to the court which turns out to be falsified forging the signature of Villanueva and false notarized document from a Quezon City lawyer who vehemently denied doing it as her signatures were also falsified.
A deed of assignment that Mahusay claims refers to a legal document that records the transfer of ownership of a shares of stocks from Villanueva to him of which the latter denied.
“I’d never sold my shares to anyone much more to Mahusay,” Villanueva said referring to 125,000 shares of stocks that covers 60 percent of the total shares with 50 percent assigned to him and the remaining 10 percent were equally shared by Sorilla and Armando B. Dy.
“The company will continue to prosecute the cases we have already filed e,ll as defend those filed against us. I am confident we shall be vivtorious,” Villanueva read the open letter to PMC employees and workers duringa press conference with local media on Wednesday afternoon.
In his open letter, Villanueva claimed McGlinn was responsible for the non-payment of procees of one gold dore shipment to Hongkong on February 8 costing US $4.47 million and likewise siphoned from Mindanao Mineral Processing and Refinery Corp. some US $ 3.6 millionas well as authorized payments on doubtful invoices amounting to around P17.38 million.
He asked the new X64 board of directors to conduct an audit of their former management, and for possible recovery of the said huge amounts of money.
For his part, Jaime Pizarro, Philsaga Employees Labor Union president, said their anxiety and fears that the company might shut down were eased after the exit of McGlinn.
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