Red flags

1. Expelling people from their communities

The Philippine Commission on Human Rights recommended the withdrawal of the financial and technical assistance agreement of a mining company operating in Northern Luzon after the commission found that the firm illegally demolished about 200 houses in the community and used excessive violence and brutality.

2. Forcing people to work

The National Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Labor and Employment raided in 1993 a sardine factory where minors were being forced to work under hazardous conditions. The firm was ordered to shut down and later charged with forced labor, slavery and child abuse.

3. Handling questionable assets

A bank executive turned state witness in the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada in 2001. She provided evidence to substantiate allegations that Estrada kept a multimillion-peso account under an alias believed to have been funded with proceeds from illegal gambling. The banker’s testimony was used as evidence in the plunder case filed with the Sandiganbayan, which pronounced Estrada guilty as charged.

4. Making illicit payments

The Philippine government filed a civil suit in a US court in 1988 against Westinghouse Electric Corp., alleging that the company paid $17 million in bribes for a contract to build a $2.2-billion nuclear power plant in Bataan. The Philippine prosecutor claimed that Westinghouse and its affiliate funneled millions to then President Ferdinand Marcos’ Swiss bank accounts through a crony. Though the court and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court acquitted Westinghouse and its affiliate in 1993, the reputation of a leading American brand was tarnished.

5. Engaging abusive security forces

A subsidiary of a British firm entered into a joint venture with National Development Corp. to develop an oil palm plantation in Agusan del Sur in the 1980s. The company came under fire in the United Kingdom after an international NGO accused it of land grabbing and violent abuses, including rape and summary executions perpetrated by its security force. The public outcry pushed the British government to rethink its role in the project and to pressure the company to change its security force.

6. Trading goods that violate international sanctions

Cases were filed against a Philippine chemical distribution firm for indiscriminately selling substances that go into improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The company was also linked to criminal activities involving IEDs in illegal fishing.

7. Allowing use of company assets for abuses, crimes

A metal and steel fabricating company in Mindanao was found that its facilities were used in the illegal manufacture of firearms. It was charged as an accessory to the crime committed by some of its employees.

8. Providing the means to kill

A company tapped the government’s paramilitary auxiliaries to protect its facilities in a town in northwestern Mindanao. It provided allowances, operational funds and weapons to the armed unit. In 2006, complaints of harassment, intimidation and extortion were filed by town residents against the security group.

9. Financing local and international crimes

Investigations were made soon after the 1986 Edsa uprising about the links of Ferdinand Marcos to Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. It was alleged that Khashoggi had helped Marcos loot the Philippine treasury, and that the nation’s gold bars were sold through the Saudi businessman.