Street protests seen vs coal plant project in Davao

10:48 pm | Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

DAVAO CITY—The city council voted to override Mayor Sara Duterte’s veto of an ordinance that would pave the way for the construction of a coal-fired power plant here, bringing the battle against the controversial project to the streets.

The council voted 21-2 to defeat the mayor’s veto of an ordinance reclassifying Binugao, the area where Aboitiz Power Corp. planned to build the coal plant, into a protected heavy industrial zone.

Dr. Jean Lindo, a leader of the Network Opposed to Coal (No to Coal), said opponents of the coal plant are now planning to resort to street protests to block the project following the council vote.

Lindo, however, declined to elaborate on details of the group’s next move.

Except for Councilors Leah Librado, who consistently opposed the project and voted “no,” and Paolo Duterte, brother of the mayor who abstained, practically all the councilors voted to override the mayor’s veto.

Mayor Duterte said she was upset about the override. “I feel frustrated and sad for Davao City,” she said.

The council action, she said, was what it was like to have “too much democracy.” She added that she was uncertain if measures promised by Aboitiz to reduce the ill effects of coal would be effective.

“We will only find out when we finally feel the impact of the coal-fired power plant,” said the mayor.

Groups opposed to the coal-fired plant condemned the council’s move. “The 16th city council is the ‘dark’ council, dirtying their hands with their ‘clean coal.’ History will judge them harshly,” said Chinkee Pelino, advocacy officer of the environment group Interface for Development Intervention.

“The connivance of the city council and Aboitiz is as dark as the truth about coal,” said Franchie Buhayan, secretary general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.

At least 600 people, majority of them students from Assumption College of Davao, gathered outside the city council in protest, setting up a small Christmas tree decorated with what they said were symbols of the ill effects of coal—pollution, displacement of communities, lead poisoning and cases of mental retardation.

They also offered a black box to Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, father of the mayor, containing 6,000 signatures of people in Davao City, particularly in Binugao and Sirawan areas, who signed the petition against the coal-fired power project. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao

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Tags: coal plant , Davao , environment , network opposed to coal , news , power , Regions , zoning law

Anonymous

Many people enjoy the benefits of electric power. But no one wants the power plant in their backyard. But a power plant must still be built somewhere and due to our increasing population, that somewhere will always have some people. Someone will have to give in and make sacrifices or accept rolling blackouts again.
Anonymous

The students and protesters are absolutely correct. Coal is a major cause of pollution, lung and respiratory diseases, certain cancers, and what’s more other than “TOE” [Target Organ Effects] of coal itself, pollution which travels on the wind and breeze patterns from the coal-plant, drift across agricultural and civilized populated areas, and gets into the food chain.

The effects are dramatic. Not too many places utilize coal any longer except Russia and China. Coal was used since the Roman era, but mostly grew into use in the Industrial Revolution. Coal pits and mining closures have been enormous since the early 1950′s due to the health and agricultural negative effects of the polluted fallout and handling.

Instead of using coal, the best way to go is to use a form of single-stream recycling methodology which means, in these plants, workers separate recyclables from what can be burned in the fire-generators to produce electricity. Of course the stacks are fitted with devices like the catalytic converters on your vehicle…filtering the good and accepted PPM’s [parts per million] of certain levels of bad stuff from the good stuff; in other words.

Burning trash is best. Check into this. It eliminates landfills, garbage dumps, pestilence on local levels when birds and rodents communitize these places, and also eliminates the lahare of the garbage, swill and refuse from becoming putik-like…mudslides.

Coal is bad. Coal kills and causes lifetime diseases. Not good. Good luck with this protest and please file a TRO against this company…government or not!

Anonymous

Burning trash still produces the same or sometimes even more harmful chemicals and ozone reducing carbon dioxide. Even if the power plant is able to catch majority of the carbon dioxide, it can only be disposed off by either burying it deep underground or by dumping it deep in the middle of the ocean and hope that it will be diluted enough to be harmless. Dumping it in the ocean is unacceptable because there is too many ifs… if it is not diluted it will pollute the ocean, if the ocean current takes it to critical areas like reefs and spawning ground of marine creatures… disaster. Burying it deep underground is too expensive if you have to dig it. Abandoned underground mines and natural caves are other options other than digging. Natural underground caves, still have to search for them and the people will not allow it to be turn into dumpsites. Natural gas is the answer to the power problem of the Philippines.

Anonymous

Sorry to take issue with you here…but burning trash is NOT the same as burning coal. Coal is burned at a low degree temperature and trash, as in the biomass fuel electrical-generation plants are controlled burned in over 1500 to 2000-degree (Fahrenheit) ovens and also-filtered in the stacks. The PPM’s have been proven to be very much reduced and against coal-generating plants, the production of PPM’s generated are harmful. Best, to go along with what the world is turning to and that are biomass and other forms of electrical-producing facilities. You can obtain natural methane gas through methane engineering in landfills, also.

Nobody mentions dumping trash in the ocean and all that…we are discussing coal versus other forms of cleaner-burning and more worthwhile electrical generation. furthermore, biomass burning creates ash, which can be used in fertilizers. Modern research and development and actual plant operations worldwide promote the use of energy-producing biomass for reasons I already pointed out in this and the related comment yesterday. Coal, coke and so forth is a thing of the past, but is still used nonsensically!

Anonymous

yes to coal power plant !…
Di nyo ba napapansin , ang china ay mayrong 700 coal power plants..at alam nyo ba na ang hanging amihan natin ay nagmumula sa china?..get the picture?
what is having 1 coal power plants in my hometown?..we need this.tama na ang arte na yan!

Anonymous

Why would you prefer a coal power plant when there is in existence another power producing plant that is 50% cleaner than the cleanest state of the art coal burning power plant? It is called natural gas power plant and it is cheaper and faster to build than the coal or any other power plant. And also, the natural gas can be sourced from Malampaya and does not have to be bought from another country. 700 coal power plant in the whole of China is like drop in the bucket. Even China knows better because they invested billions of dollar to build the Three Gorges Dam power plant instead of building more coal power plant.

murtson

Davao City councilors, except two, are all s- – - – d! They started taking money from Aboitiz in their travel to a coal-fired plant by receiving cheap allowances from Aboitiz and this override of the Mayor’s veto is the culmination of the jobbery. How can these unscropulous councilors feed their families from the money they got from Aboitiz?

Coal technology for power generation is now banned in the US and here comes these obsequious nincompoops forcing the establishment of a coal-fired generator in the city! Pollution coming from the plant will be a big problem! Not only that, the water reserve of the city will be affected and threatened.

Time for Mayor Duterte and the city folks to move against these corrupt Councilors. There is no other reason why they overturned the veto except for jobbery.

Street protests seen vs coal plant project in Davao

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