ROSARIO, Agusan del Sur— Rep. Adolph Edward Plaza, Agusan del Sur 2nd District, has categorically denied he already recognized a certain Joseph Mahusay, claiming to be the new president of Philsaga Mining Corp. (PMC) based in Barangay Bayugan 3 of this town.
The lawmaker’s denial came in the wake of a news report published in a regional newspaper based in Cagayan de Oro City that Mahusay visited Plaza in his congressional office in Quezon City to inform him that he is the new PMC president and that the latter supported him.
Part of the report said: Mahusay’s designation as the newest president of PMC was affirmed by Congressman Hon.Eddibong Plaza, Representative of District II in the Province of Agusan del Sur, ensuring that all government offices are made aware of the management change.
In the same news report, Mahusay quoted Plaza as saying: “ As legitimate president of PMC, I want to emphasize unequivocally that I wholeheartedly support the current Board and their efforts to date. They have demonstrated unwavering dedication and have proven themselves to be competent and trustworthy custodians of our company’s interests,”
The online news report was taken down on Wednesday morning.
But Plaza denied Mahusay’s claim and told lawyer Raul Villanueva, incumbent PMC president, through a Viber message he instead told Mahusay that he will not interfere with the issue since it is already a legal case.
“He just laughed off that his name was dragged in Mahusay’s claims,” Villanueva told reporters in a live Zoom interview on Tuesday.
Villanueva showed the screen shot of their conversation through a Facebook messenger group chat.
He said Rep. Plaza of which PMC is part of his congressional district jurisdiction would not mind if the Viber chat would be used as a reference for the conversation because he wants to clear himself of the still pending legal battle.
The PMC top executive said Mahusay has been making last-ditch desperate efforts to assert that he is the new PMC president alleging that Villanueva has already sold his 125,000 shares of stocks even his name has not been registered in the corporate books and he had not been issued stock certificate.
“ The shares is still in my possession since I never sold it to anybody how much more to Mahusay but he continued asserting himself with lies,” Villanueva said.
Villanueva believes the paid advertorial laden with “fake news”at regional and national broadsheets was allegedly perpetrated by Mahusay and PMC’s former Australian counterpart Jeff McGlinn, managing director of X64, was a fallback position if ever McGlinn will be booted out from x64’s board of director.
There has been a move to hold an election on June 18 to whether or not the fate of the seats of McGlinn and three other board of directors will be decided through voting worldwide among shareholders.
Villanueva disclosed that many Australian partners reported to him that to date there were already 100 million votes or about 47 percent of the expected total votes cast which calls for McGlinn and three others to be ousted from the board.
Early this year, PMC severed ties with X64 allegedly through McGlinn’s and its Hongkong trading partner Komo Diti’s behest failed to remit some USD 4.8 million for the PMC share depriving the royalties of the indigenous peoples for the ancestral lands where the mining company has been operating.
After the incident, McGlinn set up his own set of board of directors still using PMC’s corporate name with Mahusay, who was his long-time security escort when in the country, installed as the new president. ###
