A LOCAL nongovernment organization (NGO) warned the government that the social costs of continuing the Laiban Dam project will far outweigh the economic benefits the dam will give residents.

In a presentation, Clemente Bautista of Kalikasan said the project, which is seen to provide water to the Northwestern Luzon part of the Southern Luzon boundary in Rizal province, should be cancelled by the government.

Bautista said that if the government foregoes the project, it still has other dam projects that will ensure these areas will have a steady supply of clean and safe water even beyond 2010.

He said that water projects like the Wawa Dam rehabilitation, the bulk water-supply project which will come from Laguna Lake and the rehabilitation of the aqueduct at the La Mesa Dam will be enough to ensure that Luzon will not experience a water crisis.

“One reason we used to oppose the project is that we found out that there’s enough water supply. The MWSS, the Asian Development Bank [ADB], the Estrada and Arroyo administrations were making up [reasons to justify the project]. There is no water crisis because the Philippines is second to the highest in water production in Asia,” Bautista said during his lecture at the NGO Forum on ADB’s two-day seminar on Understanding the ADB in the Asia and the Pacific in Antipolo City over the weekend.

He explained that another key in preventing a water crisis in the country is to lower wastewater from defective pipes of Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co.

Bautista said that among the social costs to be paid by the government is the displacement of as much as 5,000 Filipinos, majority of whom are indigenous people (IPs).

He said the project will inundate seven barangays, namely, San Andres, Kayabu, Sto. Nino, Mamuyao, Sta. Ines, Tinucan and Laiban in Tanay, Rizal, as well as two municipalities, Nakar and Infanta, in Quezon province.

This, Bautista said, will displace the Dumagats and Remontados who reside in these parts.

While the Laiban Dam project has been suspended pending the suspension of the Joint Action Plan for Cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Philippines, Bautista said the project is already causing violence in the area.

Bautista said that already, several cases of land grabbing have surfaced and the militarization of the area is making vulnerable the IPs and other residents to human-rights abuses.

Data presented by Kalikasan showed that the Laiban Dam project has been protested by civil-society groups since the 1980s. The project was initially conceived as part of the Marikina River Project in 1978.

CONSIDERING the late start of the summer season this year, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) is looking at its power output, particularly for Luzon, to be more than enough to meet the demand for electricity this hot season.

THE spike in the price of imported rice in the world market has prompted the National Food Authority (NFA) to review its budget for rice imports.

THE Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) has extended a P12-billion credit facility to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to support the department’s initiatives to boost the production of rice and other food crops.

DOMESTIC manufacturers called on the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to correct its administrative order on voluntary disclosure as they believe the policy only emboldens further unscrupulous importers to misdeclare their shipments, as they are still allowed to avail themselves of the program even after they have been issued an audit notification letter (ANL).

TAXPAYERS’ money, instead of being plowed to better social services and other programs of the government, would instead go to another state-owned company should the government decide to renationalize Petron Corp.

A LOCAL nongovernment organization (NGO) warned the government that the social costs of continuing the Laiban Dam project will far outweigh the economic benefits the dam will give residents.

CLARK FREE PORT—Over a year after receiving the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (Capa) Low-cost Airport of the Year 2006 award, the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) again bagged the Airport of the Year award for airports with below 15 million passengers annually at the 2008 Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific Aerospace and Defense Awards Banquet held in Singapore on March 14.