LUCENA CITY?Desperate to stop the controversial multibillion-peso Laiban dam at the Sierra Madre watershed, tribesmen, farmers, and members religious and environmentalist groups will march for nine days from General Nakar town in Quezon, to Manila, starting Nov. 4, to dramatize their opposition.

?Rain or shine, the protesters led by Agta tribesmen will walk to Manila to voice out their life-and-death opposition to the project,? Fr. Pete Montallana, chair of the Save Sierra Madre Network (SSMN), said in a phone interview on Monday.

Montallana, who belongs to the prelature of Infanta and has been spending most of his missionary work among Sierra Madre tribesmen, challenged local and national candidates in the 2010 elections to make a stand and publicly express support to the fight against the Laiban dam.

Some 100 people are expected to join the grueling 148-kilometer march dubbed ?Lakad Laban sa Laiban Dam.?

The government and the public must be persuaded to stop the construction of the facility because of its threat of destruction in northern and central Luzon, said a statement of the organizers, including the Freedom from Debt Coalition, Pambansang Kilusan ng Samahang Magsasaka, Task Force Sierra Madre, the prelature of Infanta and local governments in northern Quezon.

The SSMN said the destruction brought by Tropical Storm ?Pepeng? that inundated parts of northern and central Luzon due to the presence of huge dams should convince the government and the public, it said.

The 28,000-hectare dam reservoir would displace 4,413 families from seven barangays, and flood rainforests with endemic and endangered species, and areas being claimed as ancestral lands by the Dumagat and Remontado peoples, the statement said.

Montallana expressed alarm that the project site, which is near geologic faults, would endanger the lives of people living near it.

?The Laiban dam is being built on the Marikina-Infanta earthquake fault. An estimated 22,000 residents in Real, Infanta and Gen. Nakar have signed against the dam as it will simply wash into the sea more than 100,000 people living there, in case of earthquake. This is being ignored,? Montallana said.

?We will again face an unimaginable catastrophe that will cost numerous innocent human lives,? the priest said.

In July, two Catholic bishops and 28 priests in the prelature of Infanta assailed the government plan to push through with the construction of the dam that would cover portions of Rizal and Quezon provinces.

The project, a looming joint-venture between San Miguel Corp. and the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System, is designed to divert water from the Kaliwa and Kanan rivers in the Sierra Madre and augment the water supply in Metro Manila.

The two mountain rivers are major tributaries of the Agos River, which runs along General Nakar and Infanta towns.

During the Marcos regime, the dam project was proposed to be a part of the so-called industrial complex plan in northeastern Luzon. But opposition to it forced proponents to shelve the project.