Displaced Gold Panners Worse Off Even with Japan Aid

Two years after being given loans for livelihood projects, peasants displaced by the San Roque Multi-purpose dam are worse off than before. “Narigrigat itatta” (Life is harder now), Sonia, a displaced peasant lamented.

By LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat                                                                                               

SAN MANUEL, Pangasinan — Two years after being provided with loans for livelihood projects  peasants displaced by the San Roque Multi-purpose (SRMP) dam say that they are worse off than before.  The livelihood projects have provided them with little or no financial gains at all. 

Friends of the Earth – Japan (FoE Japan) campaigner Hozue Hatae, who conducted an on-the-spot monitoring - found the cooperative store in Sitio Calingcamasan, Brgy. Narra intact and growing. Its members, however, do not earn enough from the store.

FoE Japan continuously monitors the efficiency of the compensation scheme, including livelihood programs provided by the project proponents, SRPC and the government’s National Power Corporation. 

“They and the financier, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) must take responsibility to uplift the living standards of the project’s affected people (PAPs) and to restore the quality of life they had before the construction of the dam,” Hatae told Northern Dispatch (Nordis).

This store is one of several other livelihood projects included in the Resettlement Action Plan, part of the social acceptability program of the SRMP.  

Coop operations

Two members tend the cooperative store from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. one day a week. Nine others take turns every week, since November 2002 when the San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC) approved their P30,000 loan. 

The store sells basic commodities that peasants in Calingcamasan buy daily, except rice.

 Members’ tasks include selling, keeping a list of things sold and taking a daily inventory of items that needed to be purchased in the grocery store in town.  At the end of each day, storekeepers close the store, taking care to secure it and turn in the cash sales to the treasurer. 

The store manager makes the weekly list of items and orders the goods delivered.  The inventory is done monthly and dividends are distributed.  If a member owes anything from the store, the amount is applied to the dividends, and she gets the difference or pays if there is a negative balance. 

Insufficient income

In April 2003, the cooperative bought 11 goats amounting to P8,800, from the store’s 2002 profits.  The goats were dispersed to each member. Not all goats, however, reproduced, leaving the members unsuccessful in their aim to earn additional income.

Lani, the storekeeper at the time of the FOEJ monitoring visit, gets less than P300 a month as her share in the store’s profits. 

“Not enough for a four-day a month work,” another member said of the individual share but nevertheless admitted that the amount is better than nothing.  “Isu pay…” (It still helps), she added.

Hatae’s monitoring uncovered that the store extends credit to members as well as non-members.  Its terms are difficult especially for members.  For instance, a member may get up to P300 on credit, payable within one month.  If a member cannot pay on time, a fine of P100 is collected on top of the debt.  For non-members, the ceiling for loans is P200.  The store charges only a P50 fine for late payment. This is how the store gets its additional income.

The store also engages in an internal mortgage system within the sitio (subvillage).  Interests are not charged for non-members, while an undisclosed interest is charged for non-members.   One such petty loaning arrangement yielded for the coop a refrigerator which the cooperative store now uses. 

 The store capital as of the last inventory rose to P45,000 from the original P30,000 and there was an outstanding collectible amounting to P17,000.  At the surface, the project is earning, but members say the income is not enough. 

Although it was clear to them that the amount they used as capital for the store was a loan, they are not clear whether or not the SRPC is still expecting repayments.

“Awan met ti imbagada a singiren da kami pay. Baka saan dan a singiren” (They did not say if they will still collect from us. Perhaps, they won’t), members surmised.

Originally, there were 15 member-beneficiaries but four backed out before the project started. The storekeepers are members of the Calingcamasan Women’s Livelihood Association.  They moved from various former communities, which the government expropriated in favor of the SRMP.

Better times with gold-panning

All of them still tend the farms with their respective husbands.  The women raise hogs and goats to augment their income. 

Most of them say that they still have to realize an alternative livelihood that will bring them an income that will equal what they used to earn from gold-panning. 

“Awanen ti masayyuan idi nalpas ti dam.  Nadadael metten dagiti ramramit mi idiay sigud a karayan” (There are no more gold-panning areas when the dam was done.  Our tools and equipment were destroyed in the former river), the former gold-panners inform Hatae.  Asked if the livelihood projects given by the SRPC give them enough income to add to the rice produce of their farms, they made faces insinuating that better times are yet to come.

Sonia, another member who responded to the interviews, said that only households with an overseas contract worker in the family could afford to send children to college. 

“Narigrigat itatta” (Life is harder now), Sonia said.  “Responsibilidad mi laeng daytoy nga agbantay uray awan unay ti ganar mi. Uray a ta maminsan met laeng iti maka-domingo” (It is our responsibility to tend the store even if it does not pay well.  Anyway, it’s just one day a week), Sonia said.

“Idi agsaysayyo kami, adda a dagus ti pagplete dagiti apan agiskwela, ken adda a dagus ti igatang ti masapol iti uneg ti balay” (In those times when we panned for gold, there was transportation money for students and there was instant cash with which to buy basic commodities), another laments.  

Hatae concluded that “this project itself is not efficient enough to improve the living standard of the affected people”.  Their living standard is still low, Hatae said, comparing it with the previous living standards of the gold panners, even after the provision of monetary compensation and livelihood programs.   She quoted an earlier research findings by Hideyuki Kurita of the Japanese University of Ehime that their income from gold-panning used to be P40,000-P80,000 every year.

FoE Japan still recommends the provision of the necessary, proper and just compensation.  Nordis/Bulatlat

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