Progressive Lawmaker Questions Continued Operation of San Roque Dam

Published on February 27, 2010

NEWS RELEASE
February 27, 2010

Urdaneta, PANGASINAN – Makabayan senatorial bet and Nacionalista Party guest candidate Satur Ocampo today revived calls for the decommissioning of the San Roque Dam, citing the devastation it had caused last year, among other failures.

Ocampo was in the province to campaign along with other NP bets for national posts.

“What has happened to the independent probe of the dam and its operations? Five months after the floods caused by the massive discharge of the San Roque dam, have those responsible been made accountable? So many lives were lost, and the damage to property and livelihood was immense, but the dam remains in operation as if the catastrophe did not take place,” Ocampo said.

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“The floodwaters may have dried up yet there are no guarantees that the same devastation will not happen again given the dam’s flaws in construction and operation,” he said.

Ocampo also scored the dam’s failure to solve energy problems in Pangasinan, calling it “a big white elephant.”

“The Ramos administration touted the dam as a flagship project that would supposedly help solve the energy crisis in the 1990s. Up until Arroyo’s term, proponents claimed that the dam will generate cheap energy, improve water quality, efficiently provide irrigation and control flooding. It seems none of these goals have been achieved,” he said.

Ocampo added that it was not enough that some Napocor officials have been fired in the aftermath of the flood. The very project itself was unsound and the dam should not have been built in the first place. The least that can be done now is to decommission the dam and stop the servicing of its loans,” he said .#

Reference:
Vincent Michael L. Borneo, Political Affairs Officer
Office of Deputy Minority Leader and BAYAN MUNA Rep. Satur C. Ocampo