DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines—A group of Pangasinan lawyers on Friday asked a court here to order the National Power Corp. and the San Roque Power Corp. to decommission the San Roque Dam in San Manuel town to stop it from causing “further destruction” and “great and irreparable injury” to the province.

In a class suit filed before the Regional Trial Court here, the Pangasinan Trial Lawyers’ Association (PTLA) also filed damage claims amounting to P2.4 million, which they said they incurred when the dam released “enormously large volume of excess water” from its reservoir from October 8 to 10 as Tropical Depression “Pepeng” dumped heavy rains when it battered Northern Luzon.

“[The claim] for damages is secondary. Principally, it is the specific performance—an action to compel them (Napocor and SRPC) to decommission or close the San Roque Dam—that we are after,” said retired Court of Appeals Justice Teodoro Regino, the lead counsel and one of the 24 lawyer-complainants.

In their complaint, the lawyers accused Napocor and SRPC of gross negligence and wanton disregard of Pangasinan residents’ safety when they released “extraordinarily” large volumes of water from the dam’s spillway gates.

“Dam officials unjustifiably waited for the [dam’s] water level to reach [a] very critical level when they opened the spillway gate midnight of October 7, when the water level was 287.65 meters above sea level (masl),” the lawyers said.

The dam has a maximum water level of 290 masl.

“At 3 a.m. on October 9, San Roque Dam was already releasing water at 5,072 cubic meters per second (cms). Water level at the reservoir was already 289.05 masl. Dam officials released water for more than 10 hours at 5,072 (cms) into the … Agno River,” they said.

As a result, they said, the rampaging excess water overtopped and eroded dikes along the Agno River, destroying everything in its path, causing massive flooding in 38 Pangasinan towns and cities.

The provincial government had reported that at least P8-billion worth of property, crops and fish were destroyed by the floods. At least 57 people died.

“If Napocor had considered the 280-290 masl water level to be already critical, why was it that dam officials … did not order the release of water early on when the water started breaching the 280 masl [mark]?” the lawyers said.

“Indeed, the late decision to order the release of water at the right time and with the right volume of water caused a ten-fold release in the volume of water released at 5,000 cms, an onslaught that overwhelmed the Agno River system, which has only a capacity of about 4,000 cms,” the lawyers said.

Regino said it was necessary to ask the court for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop the operation of the San Roque Dam’s power plant while the class suit is being heard so that “we won’t have flooding problems every year.”

He said shutting down the San Roque power plant, which generates 345 megawatts of electricity, would mean a lower water level at the dam’s reservoir.

“The power that would be lost [from San Roque] could easily be replaced by the coal-fired power plant in Sual, Pangasinan, which can generate a maximum of 1,600 megawatts of electricity,” Regino said.

Dagupan Councilor Jose Netu Tamayo, former PTLA president, said other people who may wish to join the class suit may still come and join the fight.

“We can amend the complaint and include them if they want,” Tamayo said.