ILOILO CITY, PHILIPPINES — This is Dagsaw-Panay-Guimaras Indigenous People’s Network’s  (Dagsaw PGIPnet)  response to the current haste of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and Calinog Mayor Alex Centena in pushing for the immediate construction of the Jalaur River megadam, nothwithstanding unresolved legitimate issues raised against it.

“The issues are clear.  There is real danger of a dam failure based on experts study of the project.  This alone is reason enough for the further study of JRMP-II.  The people’s right to participate in deliberation of ‘development projects’ that will affect them was also violated.”, declared Dagsaw Executive Director Cynthia A. Deduro.

NIA lied about the presence of an active fault line in the project area – the West Panay Fault. This lie was clearly stated in NIA’s final report to the Korea Exim Bank on November 2011.  The West Panay Fault caused one of the most catastrophic earthquakes in the country.   The magnitude 8.2 “Lady Caycay” Earthquake and Tsunami of January 25, 1948 in west-central Philippines is the second biggest earthquake in the 500-year old Philippines earthquake history. It generated a tremor of intensity 8.2 which caused damage to 55 churches, 17 of which were totally damaged.

When the truth about the presence of the active West Panay Fault was known to the public, the NIA and Senator Drilon lamely reasoned that the fault line is 11 kilometers away from the project site, thus, the mega dam project is safe.   The impact of  the February 6, 2012 earthquake of intensity 6.8  triggered by the tectonic movement of the fault in Central  Negros — belies Senator Drilon’s assertion that the Jalaur dam project is safe because it is 11 kilometers away from the active West Panay Fault.  The epicenter of the earthquake at in Central Negros  is 78 kilometers away from Iloilo which experienced an intensity 5 tremor.  Intensity 4 was also felt in Antique and Capiz. This tremors damaged  about 20 establishments in Iloilo City, the worst of which is the Iloilo Hall of Justice , a Drilon project.

On October 15, 2013 a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Central Visayas, killing at least 222 people  damaging property – including historic structures – across the region. Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum had said that the 7.2-magnitude ground shaking has an energy equivalent to around 32 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The  epicenter  of the earthquake in Inabanga town is around  44 kilometers from  Loon, Bohol which was  among the worst affected.

Dr. Ricarte S. Javelosa PhD, first Filipino geomorphologist and former supervising geologist of the DENR opined that “the defence of the proponents of the JRMPII for the seismicity of the is highly  irresponsible…”. Nobody predicted the catastrophic October 2013 Bohol earthquake.  The new fault line in Inabanga, Bohol which was the epicenter of the latest Bohol earthquake showed strong affinity with the “fault line and traces” identified in 1994.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) noticed ground rupture in Barangay Anunang, Inabanga in the devastated Bohol province that served as a surface representation of a fault underneath.

Similar “fault lines and traces” are found criss-crossing the JRMP-II.

The NIA secretly conducted  a  study  in 2009 on the feasibility of building a megadam in   the  indigenous peoples area of Brgy. Agcalaga, Calinog along the Jalaur River, without  consultation with affected communities. On November 2011,  the NIA submitted its final  feasibility study to the Korean Eximbank.   NIA  only conducted  consultations  among the  affected communities from  January to May 2012, two  months  after submission of the final feasibility study.  This is a very clear case of “the cart before the horse”.

While high government officials had finalized plans for JRMP-II, LGUs in the downstream areas of Jalaur  river were only informed about the project in August 2013..  Residents downstream of the project are not informed of the dangers inherent to the megadam and are enticed with its so-called benefits.

REFERENCE:
CYNTHIA A. DEDURO
Mobile No. +639215804138
Email Add: dagsaw.pgipnet@gmail.com

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Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
(Agricultural Workers Union)
Philippines
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A lapdog pimping for its master

The Philippine government’s reported offer of US access to local military bases under a new arrangement cloaked with pretenses of negotiations is presumptively unconstitutional.

If formalized into another onerous document, this plainly and virtually amounts to having US bases right smack into the lapdog’s own dog house.

This is certainly another shameless circumvention and quickie fix over clear and categorical constitutional injunctions against foreign military troops, bases and facilities in the country. It will condone past, and inspire future transgressions of our sovereignty, contempt for our legal processes and jurisdiction, and a horrible gang rape of our natural resources and environment.

Under another euphemistic product brand of “Enhanced Defense Cooperation,” Philippine negotiators would let in a bigger, more vicious, far more rapacious bully masquerading as a benevolent savior to “protect” the country against an upstart, second-rate and trying hard bully.

Tell that to the Marines. US troops will be upgraded from covert operations, intelligence gathering and so-called “port calls” to practically overt combat, direct command & virtual basing.

As it seems to be a done deal from the start, this latest inanity is a fitting offertory by a drooling lapdog pimping for the master who will be coming to town with its roadshow circus.

Reference:
Edre U. Olalia
NUPL Secretary General
+639175113373

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National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)
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Telefax no.920-6660
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Not content with its vicious campaign of bulldozing crops, burning of farm huts and fencing off of hundreds of hectares of agricultural lands in Hacienda Luisita, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco’s Tarlac Development Corporation (TADECO) is now circulating a petition peddling the lie that the continued control of the Cojuangco-Aquinos in Hacienda Luisita will bring peace and development to the Luisita farmers.

The petition, deceptively titled “Manifesto of the Residents of Hacienda Luisita,” is being distributed in all ten Luisita barangays together with a newletter published by a shady entity called LAPIS or the Luisita Advocacies, Public Information Service.

Such measures of deceit have long been the trademark style of the Cojuangco-Aquino clan in Hacienda Luisita, complementing its equally-proven propensity to employ violence in the name of its big-landlord interests. The current petition is no different from the so-called referenda pushed by the Cojuangco-Aquinos in 1989 which clinched the approval of the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) which transformed the Luisita estate into a corporation and effectively skirted land distribution. The referenda in 1989 and another in 2010 were classic hacendero exercises in bribery, deception, intense intimidation and harassment.

The Cojuangco-Aquino manifeto is also trying to vilify the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) as an isolated group that could only offer gloom and self-serving propaganda that malign the image of Hacienda Luisita. The truth however is that the AMBALA, together with its allied people’s formations like the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura and the Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas, has been consistently carrying the militant struggle for genuine land reform and justice— the only real hope in fact that the people of Haciend Luisita can ever cling to.

LAPIS on the other hand, states that TADECO’s development of its 358 hectares of land would propel Tarlac’s economy.  It added that unfortunately this was scuttled by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) by issuing a Notice of Coverage on said lands. It also denied that there is no militarization on said area.

It failed to state though that the 31^st Mechanized Battalion has a detachment right inside in the disputed lands, particularly in Barangay Balete and police including a fully armed SWAT team that were used in an illegal eviction action that TADECO ordered in the said village on December 21^st, 2013.

Lately TADECO again with the aid of the police has been trying to bulldoze another 214 hectares of lands in barangays Mapalacsiao and Central. TADECO has still large areas of agricultural lands which DAR has purposely excluded from issuing a Notice of Coverage.

Source Verification:
Christopher Garcia
AMBALA Spokesperson
+639293200615

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Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
(Agricultural Workers Union)
Philippines
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