Palace asked to comment on Chico project challenge

MIGHTY The Chico River, which is being tapped to irrigate farms in Kalinga and Cagayan provinces, is a major attraction for white-water rafting enthusiasts in Tabuk City. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Malacañang on Wednesday said it would submit its comment on the constitutional challenge against a China-financed irrigation project in Kalinga and Cagayan provinces that was filed in the Supreme Court last week.

The high court, sitting en banc during its summer sessions here, granted the government 10 days to respond to the April 4 petition filed by the Makabayan bloc which sought to nullify the P4.37-billion loan taken from a Chinese bank to finance the Chico River pump irrigation project.

The project when completed would divert river water to 7,530 hectares of farms in Tuao and Piat towns in Cagayan province and 1,170 hectares of rice and corn fields in Pinukpuk town in Kalinga.

‘Express waiver’

The headwaters of the 175-kilometer Chico River start at Mt. Data in Mountain Province before these flow down through Kalinga and Cagayan.

Makabayan said the preferential buyer’s credit loan agreement contains the country’s “express waiver” of its sovereign immunity, which “has allowed its patrimonial assets to stand as security for unpaid obligations under the loan agreement.”

“We had said before we will always respect whatever the other branches do or perform following the constitutional directives to each branch,” so the government will “respond properly” to the high court order, said presidential spokesperson and chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo.

“We feel that it’s not in violation of the Constitution as alleged by the petitioner,” Panelo said. “The loan agreement has passed through many channels. There has been many reviews or evaluations.”

IP consent

Construction has begun at the Chico River borders of Tuao and Pinukpok, although the Cordillera Regional Development Council (RDC) has found procedural anomalies involving the project processed by its Cagayan counterpart for the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the project developer.

Before work can be started, the project requires a “certification precondition,” which stipulates that the NIA and its Chinese contractor acquired the “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC) of the indigenous peoples (IP) residing in the project area, said lawyer Ronald Calde, Cordillera director of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

The certification had been delayed because the NIA was awaiting feedback regarding the compensation package it agreed to pay families living on land where a canal inlet of the pump irrigation system would be built, Calde said.

Most of the canals and the six pumping machines would be built in Tuao, he said.

Unlawful

The Cordillera RDC was not excluded from talks when the Cagayan RDC worked on the Chico project in 2018, but officials were concerned that proceeding with the project without the FPIC document from Kalinga was unlawful.

“The NIA complied with procedures required by Republic Act No. 8371 (the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act). They consulted the communities, and drew up a memorandum of agreement with them,” Calde said.

“The NIA allowed the contractor to begin because the Pinukpok communities themselves passed a resolution pushing for work to start so they can get their benefits. That is the problem we want to resolve,” he said.

The villagers represent one of over 40 ancestral domains recognized in Kalinga, Calde said, adding that only their consent was required by law.

Another matter which the Cordillera RDC needs addressed is the share from taxes to be paid from irrigation operations because the pump system technically straddles Tuao and Pinukpok, he said. —With a report from Christine Avendaño