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Raissa Robles

Philippine military officials said on Tuesday that Filipino and US personnel had tried to access a closed Chinese-linked steel plant in Mindanao as part of planning for a future naval facility and joint military exercises, extending a dispute that had already drawn protests from Beijing over Manila’s handling of Chinese workers at the site.
Sanjia Steel Corporation, which leases 22.6 hectares (56 acres) inside the government-run PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental province, now sits beside land Manila considers strategically important for its military expansion in northern Mindanao.
At its regular briefing on Tuesday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines confirmed that some of its personnel, along with US soldiers, had attempted to “scope” Sanjia’s premises on August 19.
The team left after being told it lacked the written authorisation required to enter the premises, according to the US embassy and local reports citing a police blotter.
The US embassy said its military personnel had accompanied members of the Philippine armed forces and staff from the PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority, which operates the sprawling industrial zone.
The US soldiers, the embassy said, wanted to assess “its potential for use in bilateral military exercises”, but a lack of any prior written authorisation meant “the team moved on to other site visits as planned. At no point was entry insisted upon”.

The Philippine team had a separate purpose, said retired rear admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, a spokesman for the armed forces.
“If you look at the situation in Tagoloan, it is close to a future projected site for development for a naval base. It is close to Lumbia Airport, an EDCA site. It is close to other critical government infrastructure,” Trinidad said.
EDCA refers to the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, which allows US personnel to be present on a rotational basis at agreed Philippine military facilities and lets the Pentagon maintain logistics hubs under the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty and related agreements, including the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement.
After the briefing, armed forces personnel explained to This Week in Asia the reason for the visit.
Navy deputy spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Cabrera said US forces went to Sanjia as part of a “site survey” for next year’s Balikatan, or shoulder to shoulder, military exercises with the Philippines and other nations.
He said this did not mean Sanjia itself would be used for Balikatan, but that “the whole area”, including Sanjia, could be affected by the training exercises and accompanying civil-military operations.
Military spokeswoman Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla said a Philippine-operated naval facility was going to be built inside the 7,400-acre PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate, where Sanjia was a tenant.
The planned naval base “is really projected to be an EDCA site” and would be part of the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defence Concept, the armed forces’ pivot towards external and territorial defence after decades of focusing on internal security and the local communist insurgency, Padilla added.

A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said turning the future naval base into another EDCA site “makes sense” since Lumbia Air Base, located about 30km (19 miles) from PHIVIDEC, was already a declared EDCA site.
Lumbia used to be a civilian airport until the Philippine Air Force took over in 2013 and upgraded its facilities.
The source noted that the planned naval facility would front Macajalar Bay, a natural deepwater bay with depths that can accommodate submarines.
According to the Environmental Management Bureau, Sanjia operated its own wharf along Macajalar Bay, where scrap metal imported from Japan and China was offloaded.
Sanjia was organised in 2018 and became fully operational inside PHIVIDEC in 2021, with a declared investment of 800 million pesos and annual production capacity of 600,000 metric tonnes of steel.
Earlier reports identified Chinese businessman Tony Yang as among Sanjia’s incorporators and chief stockholders, although the company has said he has since divested and is no longer a shareholder, director, officer or beneficial owner.
Tony is the elder brother of Michael Yang, a former economic adviser to then president Rodrigo Duterte.
Tony Yang was arrested in September 2024 amid investigations into illegal gaming operators and accused of identity and immigration-law violations.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources ordered Sanjia to close in June and cancelled the facility’s environmental compliance certificate, citing findings by nuclear experts from the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute that uranium-238, thorium-228 and thorium-232 had been detected in imported scrap metal used to make steel bars.

The plant had already been at the centre of a China-Philippines row in May, when an inter-agency raid led by the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission and the National Bureau of Investigation, and attended by Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, resulted in the arrest of 69 Chinese nationals and one Filipino, according to Philippine reports.
Philippine authorities accused the workers of immigration, labour and other violations, while the Chinese embassy said 70 Chinese workers had been detained and objected to what it described as discriminatory and selective law enforcement.
Embassy spokesman Ji Linpeng said on August 16: “Teodoro has recently spared no effort to stage anti-China activities. His real purpose is to destabilise and sabotage China-Philippines relations, pushing the Philippines to the forefront of confrontation with China, and create continued tensions and conflicts, all to serve his own ulterior political agenda.”
Trinidad said the embassy’s statements were part of what he described as foreign information manipulation and interference activities meant “to shape the information space [with] false narratives” intended “to divide us as a people … and ultimately advance their own interests”.
Beijing sanctioned Teodoro and members of his immediate family in June, barring them from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, and prohibiting Chinese organisations and individuals from transactions or cooperation with them.
Teodoro rejected the accusations and said he was “under no obligation to answer questions from any foreign government or embassy”. He also noted that the PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority, which runs the estate, was under his supervision as defence chief.


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US embassy says American military personnel wanted to assess Sanjia Steel’s premises as a potential site for next year’s Balikatan exercises


US embassy says American military personnel wanted to assess Sanjia Steel’s premises as a potential site for next year’s Balikatan exercises.


Why Philippine, US forces tried to ‘scope’ a Chinese-linked steel plant in Mindanao

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US embassy says American military personnel wanted to assess Sanjia Steel’s premises as a potential site for next year’s Balikatan exercises

US embassy says American military personnel wanted to assess Sanjia Steel’s premises as a potential site for next year’s Balikatan exercises