Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 25 August 5-11, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
Farmers
hit San Roque dam project for damage to livelihood By
Northern Dispatch/Bulatlat.com SAN
MANUEL, Pangasinan --- Some 150 farmer-members of a peasant alliance along the
Agno River picketed the San Roque dam project site here last July 27, blaming
the project for damage to their water sources and the consequent ban on gold
panning. Members
of TIMMAWA (Peasant Movement to Free the Agno) complained about a ban on placer
mining in and around the San Roque project site, which was enforced by the
National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) and the San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC)
starting July 18. TIMMAWA
claimed that the ban deprived 1,000 peasant households in this municipality of
the only means of livelihood, especially in the wake of the devastation of their
farms brought about by Typhoon Feria. TIMMAWA
said the heavy rains during the typhoon forced NAPOCOR to open the gates of its
silt-logged dams along the Agno river - at Ambuclao in Bokod and at Binga in
Itogon, both in Benguet. This resulted in widespread flashfloods downstream. TIMMAWA
further claimed that the floodwaters damaged a small, 20-year old irrigation dam
that serviced an estimated 4,500 hectares of riceland here in San Manuel and in
neighboring Asingan town. Some 3,650 peasant households had become entirely
dependent on irrigation from this dam, since the construction of the San Roque
dam had destroyed other water sources in their area, TIMMAWA said. The loss of
the irrigation dam meant that local farmers could no longer do any wet-rice
production. The
flashfloods also ravaged the ricefields of San Manuel and surrounding towns. On
some fields, the flood destroyed ripened rice of the outgoing season that was
ready for harvest, while on others, it destroyed young rice seedlings still
waiting to be transplanted for the incoming season. Faced
with the loss of both their crops and their sole irrigation source, San Manuel
peasants were left with only gold panning as means of livelihood. Until the
NAPOCOR-SRPC ban, each panner was earning a minimum of about P1,740 a day. Responding
to the farmers' picket, SRPC staff talked to TIMMAWA representatives within the
dam site compound. However, the officials of NAPOCOR and SRPC were not around.
The SRPC staff thus failed to make commitments on the demands that TIMMAWA
presented. The
SRPC staff said they could not make any commitments on lifting the ban on gold
panning. Atty. Adonis Cillias of the SRPC's Quarrying Department, which is
tasked to enforce the ban, said the ban was based on safety considerations. The
gold panners could defy the ban, he explained, but then the SRPC would not be
able to ensure their safety or to compel its subcontractor, Raytheon, to pay
them any compensation in case they meet an accident. Although
at first they denied any obligation on SRPC's or NAPOCOR's part to repair the
irrigation dam, the SRPC staff promised to have their company see to this within
the next two to three weeks. The
TIMMAWA representatives pointed to a long list of promises that the builders of
the San Roque dam had already reneged on. This included the compensation, still
largely unpaid, for properties and livelihood that the dam's construction had
cost the people of San Manuel and the adjacent municipality of San Nicolas. Simplicio
Sicuan, spokesman of the Itogon Inter-Barangay Alliance, a TIMMAWA affiliate,
said that the dam project ought to be suspended until the compensation due all
dam-affected people was fully paid. "Once the construction is completed, we
would no longer have any chance of compelling NAPOCOR to pay," Sicuan
pointed out to the SRPC staff. "That's what happened in Itogon with the
building of the Binga dam." Sicuan
noted that in the case of the Ambuclao dam, NAPOCOR only paid the families whose
lands were immediately submerged. But as time passed, Sicuan recalled, siltation
caused the submerged area to triple. When the affected people demanded that
NAPOCOR pay them too for their submerged properties, the company claimed that
the siltation was not NAPOCOR's responsibility, but simply the natural result of
the ageing of the soil around the dam. When the Ambuclao residents pointed out
that the river would not have filled up so early if it had not been dammed, the
NAPOCOR merely ignored them, Sicuan said. When
Sicuan reiterated his appeal for a halt to the San Roque dam's construction, the
SRPC staff replied, "This is a matter that only our superiors and the
government can address." Northern Dispatch/Bulatlat.com
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