Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Vol. IV, No. 32 September 12-18, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
Agno
River Irrigation: Development Or Peril? The
Tignay dagiti Mannalon a-Mangwaya-waya iti Agno (Peasant’s League to
Free the Agno) or TIMMAWA, a movement opposed to the destruction of the
Agno river, last week said that the San Roque Dam caused the massive
floods that submerged 90 percent of the province recently and killed eight
persons. Still, the government plans to embark on another perilous project
connected to the dam which will affect fertile farm lands and threatens
more floods in the provinces of Pangasinan and Tarlac.
By
Jhong dela Cruz URDANETA,
Pangasinan -The Tignay dagiti Mannalon a-Mangwaya-waya iti Agno
(Peasant’s League to Free the Agno) or TIMMAWA, a movement opposed to
the destruction of the Agno river, last week said that the San Roque Dam
caused the massive floods that submerged 90 percent of the province
recently. Eight persons were killed while damages to aquatic and
agriculture products amounted to over P265 million. In all, 29,148
families in more than 90 villages were uprooted. But
the San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC) which operates the San Roque
Multi-Purpose Dam (SRMPD) in San Manuel, Pangasinan denied the
allegations.
With
its power component in place in May 2003, the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam
started operations without the other non-power components such as flood
control, irrigation, and water quality. The irrigation and flood control
components are yet to be implemented by the National Irrigation
Administration (NIA) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH),
respectively. But while SRPC consistently ignores the unresolved issues,
according to TIMMAWA, it intends to create yet another perilous project,
the Agno River Integrated Irrigation Project (ARIIP). Irrigation
In
August 1999, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) approved
the P10.8 billion irrigation component of SRMPD. The project was supposed
to rehabilitate the existing irrigation facilities along Agno River.
According to NIA, if completed it could secure an eight-year water supply
for irrigation to 70,800 hectares of agricultural land, benefiting over
57,560 farmer families. The
scheme involved the construction of a new diversion weir located about 1.5
kms downstream of the existing weir. The new diversion weir has storage
area of 1,000 has. and a storage capacity of 5 million cubic meters. It
also involved the rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage canals of the
three existing irrigation systems down Agno: Agno River Irrigation System
(ARIS), Ambayaoan-Dipalo Irrigation System (ADRIS) and Lower Agno River
Irrigation System (LARIS). The
scheme covers 28 municipalities in Pangasinan, Moncada and San Manuel
towns in Tarlac and Cuyapo town in Nueva Ecija. Project construction
should have started this year and would end up in year 2010. The
irrigation scheme, which started its pre-engineering works in December
1999, using purely domestic funding of P250 million accomplished at least
5 percent implementation as of December 2002. It sought financial
assistance from Japan through the Japan Bank for International Cooperation
(JBIC) but was denied due to opposition from various cause-oriented
groups. Instead,
the Japanese government proposed that the scheme should not be installed
in connection with the SRMPD in order to avail loan financing from JBIC.
In response, NIA came up with the Agno River Integrated Irrigation Project
(ARIIP), a new scheme drafted according to the irrigation component of the
SRMPD. It includes the reconstruction of irrigation facilities located in
ARIS and ADRIS with reduced area coverage of 34,450 hectares and a
construction of a new diversion weir. The project amounts to about P6.89
billion and is seen to benefit 28,000 farmer families in 17
municipalities. Engr.
Noel Sta. Ana, Deputy Project Manager of ARIIP, said “The peasants
particularly those whose lands depend on irrigation from Agno River,
suffer because our facilities have worn out that’s why they need
immediate repair.” Data gathered by NIA revealed that as of the present,
the three irrigation systems can only provide water supply to 5,630 has. (ARIS),
691 has. (ADRIS) and 2,260 has. (LARIS) compared to 26,850 has., 7,600
has. and 12,650 has. of agricultural lands that need to be irrigated. “The
project was derived according to the recorded Agno River flow for the past
17 years and therefore guarantees 80 percent water supply
dependability,” Sta. Ana said. Restoring irrigation canals however is
not sufficient to solve water supply shortage that occurs in every 2 to 3
years. Putting up a new diversion weir that can store 5.5 mcm of water
supply could alleviate this, Sta. Ana explains. TIMMAWA
opposed the project because a macro-level irrigation scheme like ARIIP, it
argues, is “a deceptive development project designed to further rob the
peasants of Pangasinan of their right to land, life and livelihood.” Unresolved
issues TIMMAWA
maintained that any macro-level irrigation project connected to SRMPD will
not benefit peasants and Pangasinenses but further endanger their lives. Jose
Doton, TIMMAWA chairperson said, “We suspect that the ARIIP being the
irrigation component of San Roque Dam will in the long run, turn out to be
its flood control component.” The
group condemned SRPC’s attitude of dismissing the unsettled issues
between the dam’s proponents and the affected communities by moving
forward to other projects. SRPC had identified at least 300 families be
given compensation for pagsasayyo (gold panning) but TIMMAWA said
that there are more than 3,000 families who were deprived of their
livelihood,
gold panning along Agno River, because of the dam’s construction.
Former Mayor Rodrigo of San Nicolas town confirmed that about 500,000 has
of land were used by SRPC and the affected farmers have not yet been given
compensation. Affected
residents who were relocated to Sitio Camanggaan in San Manuel, complained
of paying electricity and water bills, which according to them were
promised free of charge by the San Roque Dam management. Resettlement
houses were observed to be ‘sub-standard’. Others have sold their
properties and abandoned their houses because of ‘uninhabitable
conditions’. Meanwhile,
Bayan-Pangasinan (New Patriotic Alliance-Pangasinan) called on SRPC to
abort its operation of the dam ‘to circumvent dangers the people of the
province may encounter.” The alliance claimed that aside from aggravated
flooding, a bigger flood that will entirely wash out the province might
happen because the dam was built alongside the Dig-dig fault line, which
triggered a massive earthquake affecting Benguet and Pangasinan provinces
in 1990. SRPC on the other hand countered that the dam is 100 percent
earthquake proof. Alternative
solutions TIMMAWA
proposed that to solve the problem of irrigation in the province, the Agno
River must be freed of all obstructions, which include the decommissioning
of the San Roque Dam. The
group disclosed that about 60-80 hectares of abundant agricultural lands
would be affected by the construction of the ARIIP. Doton said that like
the Pantabangan and Casecnan dam in Nueva Ecija, ARIIP will fail to
fulfill its promises of providing sufficient irrigation because dams
particularly San Roque Dam, store big volumes of water to generate
electricity for its power component. The
group appealed to NIA not to collect irrigation taxes from poor farmers,
to build a small impounding dam and to develop a communal irrigation
system. It also affirmed the need to rehabilitate worn-out canals in ARIS,
ADRIS and LARIS and the necessity of forming small canals leading to the
farmlands. On
the other hand, NIA asserted that the ARIIP is independent from the San
Roque Dam and can operate even without the dam. It attested that the new
diversion weir will not displace agricultural lands and should there be
acquisitions, these will be given due compensation. When completed, NIA
said it shall ‘lighten’ the peasants’ burden in paying accumulated
debts from the bureau. The ARIIP construction is scheduled to take off in 2005 and will be completed in 2008. Its request for loan from JBIC however, has not been approved because of the economic crisis facing the country, according to Japanese officials. Bulatlat We want to know what you think of this article.
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