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By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk
Editor
Editor’s note: The previous
part described the nature of official development assistance, the
basic socio-legal environment and issues associated with it, and
factors that make it illegitimate from the view of civil society.
Last of two parts
Many civil society groups have
complained that many aid and/or loan-financed projects have only
served to displace entire social sectors and communities, such as
the NorthRail and SouthRail projects that displaced entire
communities in Metro Manila.
In his testimonies before the
Senate blue-ribbon committee, Senate star witness Rodolfo Noel
Lozada Jr. alluded to them as among the loans he knew to be tainted
like the scrapped national broadband deal.
In mid-February, Gabriela
Women’s Partylist Representative Liza Largoza Maza scored
infrastructure projects, which, aside from being overpriced, bode
displacement for over 100,000 urban poor families in Metro Manila.
“Overpriced infrastructure
deals that benefit the few are not only depriving hundreds of
thousands of families of the services that public funds could have
otherwise provided; now, their homes are being demolished,” said
Maza.
ODA projects like the
P14.1-billion C5 North Extension (C5NE) project and the $932-million
SouthRail Rehabilitation and Extension are set to displace over
100,000 families. Both are marred with allegations of overpricing
and corruption.
The Gabriela lawmaker explained
that the SONA technical report allocates P12.77 billion to the
22-km, eight-lane highway C5NE project, meaning that the C5NE costs
P72.53 million per kilometer, per lane.
Maza pointed out that this is
P51.53 million to P53.53 million higher than the usual DPWH
estimates of P19 million to P21 million per kilometer, per lane.
Maza also smells unwarranted
realignment of vital public funds, charging that an additional P1.4
billion appears to have been siphoned into the C5NE project from
various items in the national budget such as “Segment I of
NLEX-SLEX connections via C5” and “Seven Major Metro Manila
roads,” bringing the total allocation to P14.1 billion.
The C5NE project, set to begin
implementation in the first quarter of 2008, will displace an
estimated 40,000 families in 10 barangays in Quezon City, including
those in the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
Meanwhile, an estimated 100,000
families living along the railroad track from Alabang, Muntinlupa to
San Pedro, Laguna up to Tagkawayan, Quezon will also be displaced
with the implementation of the $932-million SouthRail project which
ZTE-NBN witness Rodolfo Jun Lozada has alleged to be overpriced by
$70 million.
Urban poor leaders and affected
residents of the said projects have met with Maza and other
legislators, vowing to resist the implementation of the projects
that they believe will only displace them.
The women’s partylist is now
seeking an investigation into the implementation of the said
infrastructure projects to look into the displacement of families
and their consequent programs of relocation, as well as into
allegations of overpricing.
“We are hoping to suspend the
implementation of these anomalous projects until everything has been
cleared,” said Maza, decrying that any project that displaces the
poor cannot possibly bring about human development.
In September 2005, the Senate
started to conduct an investigation into the NorthRail Project, and
one wonders what happened to it. The project was beset by
allegations of overpricing, violation of processes for
infrastructure development projects, and onerous loan terms, not to
mention the eviction of about 40,000 families.
In another instance, independent
think-tank IBON Foundation warned that the Arroyo government’s
plan to revive the controversial P47.93-million Laiban Dam project
spells serious social costs for thousands of local residents and
indigenous communities.
Malacañang plans to revive the
mothballed project, shelved for nearly 27 years, to provide water to
Metro Manila and generate an additional 25 megawatts of
hydroelectric power.
A nongovernment organization
(NGO), the Southern Sierra Madre Wildlife Center, had estimated that
the project will cost approximately $1 billion with an estimated
cost overrun of 56 percent, eventually raising the cost of its
construction to $1.56 billion.
The Church-based Indigenous
People’s Apostolate of the Diocese of Infanta said the dam’s
location near geological faults can jeopardize the stability of the
dam structure, and might cause destructive floods anew in the
adjoining towns of General Nakar, Infanta and Real, Quezon, that are
still reeling from the 2004 flashfloods that killed hundreds.
The revival of the Laiban dam
threatens to displace 3,500 families in eight barangays (seven in
Tanay, Rizal, and one in General Nakar, Quezon), in the Rizal-Quezon
border, and would affect 27,800 hectares of agricultural land.
It will also displace indigenous
peoples (Dumagats and Remontados) from their ancestral land, their
resource base and source of livelihood. These people are upland
farmers and indigenous peoples whose lives depend on the forest,
farm lots and rivers.
While consumers are set to
shoulder the payment for the project’s funding, increased water
supply and lower water rates are not guaranteed with the completion
of the Laiban dam.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB)
promised to provide a 10-year term loan of $1-billion for the dam
construction under the build-operate-transfer scheme, and has
reportedly released an initial $3.26-million technical assistance to
Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System.
The 113-meter high rockfill
Laiban Dam is projected to be as big as the San Roque Multipurpose
Dam in the provinces of Benguet and Pangasinan, which in the past,
reportedly caused flashfloods that submerged numerous towns in
Pangasinan, Tarlac and other provinces in 2004.
The gargantuan San Roque Dam was
paid for by at least $702 million from the Japan Export-Import Bank,
through a first release of $302 million and a second release of
$400 million.
It was built downstream in
Pangasinan province, the last in a series of three dams on the Agno
river that Cordillerans charged as having, over 45 years, decimated
Ibaloi economy and culture, farms, farmlands and valleys. The
earlier dams were at Ambuklao (1954) and Binga (1961).
When the two dams were built,
there was no resettlement plan, and compensation was almost unheard
of. Some people resettled downstream with relatives in other areas,
while others were forced to migrate long distances.
Only in 1996, more than 40 years
too late, was a compensation commission established, obviously
intended at disarming opponents of the new project than the welfare
of the earlier victims.
Vital infrastructure projects are
important, but costly large dam projects such as the revival of the
Laiban dam extract high social costs and the San Roque Multipurpose
Dam, said Ibon.
Ibon warns that social conflicts
are among those exacted by aid projects. In NEDA’s 15th
Annual Portfolio Review, social conflicts could also be presumed in
right-of-way (ROW)/land acquisition problems acknowledged by the
state planning agency.
Among such problems encountered
involved “[a] delayed judicial action on the titling of acquired
properties [Laguindingan Airport]; [b] unresolved issues on land
ownership [Laguna de Bay Institutional Strengthening and Community
Participation Project and Lower Agusan Flood Control Project]; [c]
relocation site no longer available [MWSS New Water Source
Development Project]; and, [d] new batch of informal settlers
re-occupied the previously cleared areas [KAMANAVA Area Flood
Control Project].”
Problems in such projects could
also be because of some failings of project implementers. The NEDA
review reported “Originally, acquisition of access roads for the
New Bacolod Airport [DOTC] should have been shouldered by LGUs
[local governments], however, LGU’s new leadership denied such
responsibility as there exists no written agreement. This resulted
in the shouldering of acquisition cost by the project leading to an
increase in NG [national government] share in the total project
cost.”
Cases such as these are now going
to be looked into by civil society elements to curb what they call
the increasing number of displacement cases brought about by
development aid that flowed into the country’s coffers.
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