TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The proponents of the 15-20 megawatt Upper Tabuk Hydropower Project (UTHPP) along the Tanudan River a short distance to where it joins the Chico River in barangay Dupag, this city, cannot understand the determined efforts of a local farmers’ organization to block the recently revived undertaking.
Marco Pagtud, an adviser of the Minanga indigenous people’s organization, cannot reconcile the claim of the Timek ti Mannalon ti Kalinga (TMK), a farmers’ organization under the umbrella of the left-leaning Cordillera People’s Alliance, to be the protector of the rights of indigenous peoples (IPs) with the group’s opposition to the initiative of the Minanga indigenous cultural community (ICC) to benefit from their resources.
Pagtud said that the Minangas initiated the project in 2008 because it offered a solution to the shortage of irrigation water for the more or less 65 hectare ricelands in barangays Dupag, Bagumbayan and Naneng and likewise to the transportation woes of the Minanga population residing across the Chico River from the Tabuk-Bontoc Road.
Pagtud said that with the road and bridge to be constructed to the project location, the Minangas on the other side of the river will no longer have to carry their agricultural products passing through hanging bridges to the road.
Pagtud also said that the TMK refuses to acknowledge that practically, the entire Minanga ICC supports the project.
“Ninety-eight percent of Minangas are for the project. The members of the ICC who oppose the project are motivated by their ideology and politics,” Pagtud said.
Sought for reaction, TMK staff member Mike Wingnga said that being a federation of people’s organizations in the locality, the TMK does not only consider the interest of the Minangas but likewise those of other people who will be adversely affected by the project.
Wingnga said that the TMK is also wary that the affected residents might suffer the fate of the original residents of Ambuklao Dam and other dams who have lost the source of their livelihood and have been dislocated due to the dam projects.
TMK staff member Froilan Wanagan stated that there is still no assurance of the fulfilment of the irrigation service for the farmlands in Upper Tabuk promised by the developer because as planned, the funding for the irrigation will come from the income of the hydropower project.
“The irrigation component should have been incorporated in the project design,” Wanagan said adding that if the irrigation problems of the farmlands in the area was the concern, then the need should have been directly addressed without need of constructing a dam.
Moises Bangit, a TMK member from barangay Dupag, said that the organization is not against progress but that they have to defend the land and honor of the residents of the area.
Bangit also said that 95 percent of Minangas are farmers who may be hired as laborers during the construction of the dam but will go back to being farmers after the construction.
The TMK which played a major role in the shelving of the project in 2012 has opposed the quest of the Minangas for the endorsement of the project by the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) through a position paper which claimed that the project will cause flooding, siltation and sedimentation upstream and flooding downstream, will be a threat to irrigation service of the farmers relying on the Chico River for their irrigation because of the need of the hydro power project to maintain a certain volume of water in its reservoir to run its turbines during the dry season and will contribute to climate change.
Citing the World Civic Society Manifesto to Real Climate Change Solution which it said was signed by 500 organizations from 85 countries, the TMK said that hydro power projects “account for more than 4% of all human-caused climate change” because of the greenhouse gases they emit.
In his response to the TMK, Engr. Daniel Peckley, Jr., owner of the DPJ Engineers & Consultants, the company tapped by the Minanga ICC to be its development partner, said that the issue of upstream flooding, siltation and sedimentation are taken care of by the sluice gates of the dam which he said allows sediment flushing.
Peckley, owner of the 1 MW Bulanao Hydro Electric Power Plant, the first hydropower plant in Kalinga, said that contrary to the claim of TMK that the UTHPP will cause downstream flooding, dams could mitigate flooding by blocking and slowing down flood waters.
Peckley also said that the UTHPP will not affect the irrigation service because, according to studies, even without the Tanudan River, the water in the Chico River will satisfy the requirements of the Upper Chico River Irrigation System even during summer.
He also pointed out that the Water Code of the Philippines (P.D. 1067) prioritizes irrigation over hydropower generation.
Regarding the issue of the contribution of dams to climate change, Peckley said that according to the latest studies on the subject, the greenhouse gases emitted by dams “is not significantly higher than natural rivers, ponds or lakes, as other groups dramatically exaggerate it to be.”
Peckley contended that if renewable source of energy especially hydropower are not harnessed, the alternative are more large coal-fired power plants the operation of which could worsen global climate change.
The committees on environment, natural resources and energy, on infrastructure, on agriculture and on tourism, culture and arts of the SP have started to jointly hear Minanga’s request for endorsement of the proposed project on July 31.
Miguel Bontao, one of the two recorders of the public hearing, said that the legislators have asked the TMK to present data to back up its claims as to the adverse effects of the project.**Estanislao Albano, Jr.
