Danao River: Rehabilitation for Profit?

Escalante City’s executives want to rehabilitate an 8-km long river but the residents are opposing it. This means not only the dislocation of more than 1,000 residents, mostly fisherfolks and peasants, but also the entry of big capitalists and foreign investors whose only interest is to plunder natural resources in the name of more profit, concerned groups say.

BY KARL G. OMBION
Bulatlat

OLD POBLACION, ESCALANTE CITY  – The local government here is implementing the Save Danao River program. It is good that the river is being saved, but why is it opposed by fisherfolks and peasants there?

The Danao River is located at the Old Poblacion of Escalante City, 98 kms north of Bacolod City, Negros Occidental in central Philippines. It is eight kilometers long and zigzags from the estuary of Barangay (village) Danao, the Visayan Sea, Tanon Strait, and inward to the Barangay Danao proper.

It is the main source of livelihood for most of the more than 1,000 residents of Danao, as well as other neighboring barangays. In addition, it has a small commercial port that transports passengers and goods to Cebu and other islands in the Visayas. The port is reportedly owned by a corporation, with the families of Escalante City Mayor Santiago Barcelona and the Maranons owning stocks.

Small fisherfolks and peasants here vowed to defy Barcelona’s order for them to remove all their fishing structures like the talabahan (greenshells breeding structures), panggal (snare structures for crabs) and tangaban (fish cage structures), to pave the way for the implementation of the program. Barcelona has given the local fisherfolks until March 3 to remove their structures.

In a rally held on the day of the mayor’s deadline in Barangay Danao, more than 1,000 fisherfolks, peasants, and other sectors slammed the river program as a destructive “eco-tourism” program that is biased against poor fisherfolks and farmers households in and around the area.

The protesters were supported by Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya (Pamalakaya, or National Federation of Fisherfolk Organizations in the Philippines), Bayan Muna (People First) and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, or New Patriotic Alliance).

Steady destruction

Edras Dianon, a fisherfolk in the Danao River for decades, said that the river helped him send his children to school and sustain their livelihood. In the 1930s, he recalled that the river was 18-ft deep and rich in marine resources. But when the forests around the river were cleared, big commercial fishponds were constructed and the ports were set up, fish stocks had gradually decreased.

Dianon belied Barcelona’s accusation that the poor fisherfolks were to blame for the current state of the river, arguing, “Massive illegal logging, too many private fishponds, and the commercial port and consequent ecological problems were the main causes of economic and environmental problems now plaguing the river and the communities around it.”

For his part, Pamalakaya-Negros Secretary General Editho Namion, Jr. said that the presence of big private land and commercial fishponds in and around Danao River proves who is to blame for the continued ecological and economic destruction of the river.

Namion particularly mentioned the 18 hectares of fishponds and mangroves of Barcelona’s family, 200 hectares of commercial fishponds of a certain Javellana, and few other big landowners-commercial fishing operators.

“The destruction of Danao River can only be blamed on the people who have direct control and disposition of the lands, river and open waters in the area,” the Pamalakaya leader said. 

Save Danao River - for whom?

The Save Danao River program is a city government program aimed to rehabilitate, conserve and make the river productive. According to Barcelona, the river is endangered because it is already shallow, and filled with illegal structures. Namion quoted Barcelona as saying that the people living near the Danao River “should be removed because they are the ones destroying the river, and they are trash in the eyes of foreigners and tourists coming and going through the Danao River port.”

Bulatlat research revealed that the program is an integral part of the city’s Comprehensive Land Use Development Plan that aims to turn coastal barangays into eco-tourism resorts, commercial fishponds, and establish a modern port center that will boost trading business with Cebu and neighboring islands.

To be affected by the program is not only Barangay Danao which hosts Danao River Port, but also neighboring barangays like Sitios Lawis and Magkaya of Barangay Langob; Sitios Molabog and Talanas of Barangay Old Escalante; Sitio Cagay 1 & 2 of Barangay Buenavista; Sitios Nabutaan & Napungalan 1 & 2 of Barangay Hunob-hunob; Sitios Tanguinto, Amparo and old Mabini of Barangay Mabini; and Sitio Lawis 1 & 2 of  Barangay Alimango. About 1,200 households will be uprooted by the program.

The program will particularly clear the fishing structures in the river, and remove residents around the river to give way to various infrastructures like port expansion, dike construction and guard posts.

Meanwhile, Ben Tuanzon, Barcelona’s executive assistant, admitted that they have problems enforcing the removal of “illegal fishing structures” in the Danao River, because the authority on estuary concerns is with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). However, he said that they are doing everything to immediately effect “voluntary demolition” of the said structures pending legal remedies.

Save the people and their livelihood

But Bayan-Negros Secretary General Felipe Gelle, who took part in the fact-finding mission last March 3, said that the Save Danao River program is “an environmental mask for pushing through the plan of the city government for water-use and land-use reforms in favor of the big business, aquaculture businesses, and foreign tourists”.

The Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and the Save Danao River program, according to Gelle, are schemes by corrupt local bureaucrats to allow the plunder of the area’s natural resources by foreign big business. If this pushes through, Negrenses will soon witness the destruction of once beautiful, clean and rich Escalante into a haven of plunderers, crooks and thugs. Then there will be endless economic, political and social tsunamis, added Gelle.

Fr. Greg Patino, former director of the Diocese of Bacolod Social Action Center who now heads several environmental and people’s advocacy campaigns, said that the Save Danao River program is clearly anti-people, and the people should reject it. Bulatlat

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