Apeco critics: 5,000 MT of rice yield at risk

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Casiguran town in Aurora stands to lose an annual average of 5,000 metric tons of palay and 12.4 million coconuts should the national government allow the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport (Apeco) to proceed there, the Task Force Anti-Apeco (TFAA) said on Sunday.

TFAA said the estimated losses were computed based on annual yield projections of Bataris Formation Center. The National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is helping the groups.

TFAA said converting Aurora lands would “damage agricultural production” and “seriously jeopardize food security” in many areas, including Metro Manila.

But Sen. Edgardo Angara, proponent of the law that created Apeco, called the latest argument against the free port “garbage.”

“Nothing of the sort,” he said in a text message. His son, Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, said the figures are “inaccurate and proceed upon false assumptions.”

The senator and the congressman designed Apeco as an agricultural, commercial, industrial area with a seaport supposedly to help free Aurora from poverty.

The younger Angara said Apeco consists of two parcels. The first is 496 hectares devoted to rice planting. Forty percent of the area is planted with coconut trees. The second is 12,247 ha that is largely forest land with some areas planted with coconuts, he said.

“There are no plants to disturb in the next few years, since the plan is to make a nature preserve,” he said.

Apeco, he said, will “enhance the potentials for better infrastructure that will benefit farmers, producers and planters.”

The office of the municipal agriculturist said the town’s 15 villages produced 16,881 MT of rice in 2010. It includes the yield of 496 ha of farmland in Barangays Esteves and Dibut, which form part of the first parcel of Apeco.

The Aquino administration has approved P332.5 million for Apeco this year, lower than the proposed P3.565-billion budget.

TFAA said the gains of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in the town would be wasted because Apeco covered 525.1 ha of rice lands given to 444 farmers.

Most of the 12,923 ha covered by Apeco were “either already owned or long-settled upon by farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples,” TFAA said. “These same lands were not at all idle, but productive, containing many prime and irrigated agricultural areas.” Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon