MANILA (UCAN): The controversial China-funded Kaliwa Dam project in the northern Philippines which threatens to displace thousands of tribal people received an environmental compliance certificate from the Environment Management Bureau on October 11, allowing the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, the proponent, and contractor, China Energy Engineering Corp. to proceed with the mega-dam.
However, they still have to secure “necessary permits from other pertinent government agencies” before they can start the construction.
“You are expected to implement the measures presented in the environmental impact statements intended to protect and mitigate the project’s adverse impacts on the community, health, welfare and the environment,” the certificate reads.
The issuance of the certificate drew criticism from various Church and pro-environment groups opposed to the project, which is funded by a US$248 million ($1.9 billion) loan from China.
Father Pete Montallana, who heads the Save Sierra Madre Network, said the issuance of the certificate clearly shows that the government favours businesses over the welfare of the people and the environment.
The priest said five out of six clusters of indigenous communities rejected the implementation of the project.
The mega-dam project, one of the 75 flagship infrastructure projects under the government’s Build, Build, Build programme, will displace at least 15,000 indigenous people.
“The government said the dam will solve the water crisis in Metro Manila but how about the people it will affect and the environment that it will destroy?” Father Montallana asked.
He criticised the decision to issue the certificate despite testimonies of environmental experts and scientists that “the project’s environmental impact statement (EIS) lacks good science and thorough analysis.”
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Early this month, environmental expert Ruben Guieb said the EIS “was not able to identify and qualify the significant impacts of the project.”
He said the proponents do not have sufficient plans to ensure that “mitigation and enhancement measures” will be in place (Sunday Examiner, October 20).
Father Montallana called the project “a train-wreck waiting to happen,” adding, “They did not conduct further studies to test whether the proposed structure could stand a strong earthquake considering that it is located on a fault line.”
Leon Dulce, national coordinator of the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, said they reject the certificate issuance “as proponents ignored the risks of biodiversity loss, forest degradation and long-term depletion of water supply.”
A lawyer, Aaron Pedrosa of Sanlakas, said, “We will make sure that will make them accountable if they will push this project that clouded with so many anomalies and irregularities from the very onset.”
Pedrosa noted that the proposed dam already violated the law in its procurement process after a commission on audit revealed that the bidding process was little more than a sham.
The Kaliwa Dam project is an integrated dam system involving the construction of a dam on the Kaliwa River in Rizal province, and a smaller dam downstream in Quezon province.
