Militants protest dam project during Xi visit

SAN PEDRO CITY – About 200 members of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Southern Tagalog (BAYAN-ST), along with members of the indigenous Dumagat tribe trooped to the Chinese Embassy in Manila Tuesday to protest the planned construction of a dam on the Sierra Madre mountain ranges in Quezon and Rizal.

The contract to build the P19-billion Kaliwa Dam, funded through an Official Development Assistance from China was expected to be signed when Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President Duterte.

Xi arrived on Tuesday for his two-day state visit, his first under the Duterte administration.

“Not just us (activists) but even mountaineers and members of environmental groups have been opposing the Kaliwa Dam,” said Bayan-ST spokesperson Casey Cruz.

Various sectors, including the church, feared that the dam may cause massive flooding that would affect 1,465 families in the towns of Tanay in Rizal and in General Nakar and Infanta towns in Quezon.

Cruz said their group has received reports that Chinese engineers have began surveying the area for the dam construction.

‘Bullying’

Aside from the dam project, militants also raised issues of Chinese “aggression” into the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc) in the West Philippine Sea.

“We see China as a big capitalist, imperialist that is bullying us. We may soon become part of their war,” Cruz said in a phone interview.

After the “welcome protest” to the Chinese president, Bayan-ST will proceed in the afternoon to the Supreme Court to protest
Sandiganbayan’s decision to grant Ilocos Norte representative Imelda Marcos a temporary liberty.

Mrs. Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was earlier convicted of graft for funneling government funds into the family’s personal accounts abroad.

Cruz said they would also raise issues on the recent Supreme Court ruling that has allowed the removal of Filipino and Panitikan subjects in the tertiary curriculum.