SBMA Chair Bobby Garcia. Photo from SBMA website
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Top officials of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) have asked President Benigno Aquino to relocate the 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant project of an energy consortium out of Subic due to the potential danger it poses on the freeport and mounting opposition from stakeholders of the economic zone.
“This is the official position of the board [that was arrived at on May 4], which I have communicated to the President, and [RP Energy Inc., a consortium of energy companies Aboitiz Power, Manila Electric Co. and Taiwan Cogen Corp.],” said SBMA Chair Roberto Garcia on Wednesday.
Malacañang has yet to respond to the SBMA position.
“There is no indication [from President Aquino that he has decided on the proposed Subic plant’s fate]. But in a recent meeting with [Energy] Secretary Jose Rene Almendras], I told him [about
SBMA’s position],” Garcia said.
In a 2011 energy forum in Baguio City, Almendras described the Subic project as a new facility that would sustain Luzon’s power supply in the near future.
In an interview, Garcia said: “In summary, because of the widespread opposition to the coal plant, we have requested the President to relocate [the facility] somewhere else … because, for obvious reasons, major tourism projects will be downgraded. [The value and attractiveness] of Subic will be downgraded. [Besides,] there are many other places [that RP Energy] can locate the coal plant, so why here?”
Garcia said the abandoned Bataan nuclear power plant is a good alternative site for the RP Energy coal-fired plant. “[The government] has infrastructure there. Four hundred hectares [are] developed, [so] all they have to do is build the jetty,” he said.
In his May 2 letter to RP Energy chair Oscar Reyes, Garcia said “locating the coal plant in [Subic’s] unique forest and marine environment … would adversely compromise the freeport’s significant tourism potential.”
“There are many other places to locate this coal plant. There is only one Subic Bay,” he said.
In a report that SBMA submitted to Malacañang, the agency said the project was rejected by freeport stakeholders in a 2011 social acceptability process.
About 155 representatives of the area’s local governments, the zone’s business and tourism locators, freeport residents, landowners, including the Aeta indigenous communities, and freeport workers took part in the consultation process from Dec. 7 to 9.
RP Energy, however, did not join the consultations.
In a statement he made earlier, Raymond Cunningham, first vice president for business development of Aboitiz Power and member of RP Energy’s steering committee, said: “If we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of people in this area do not want the project, we would go away.”
Garcia acknowledged the need to improve power supply. But he said, “We don’t need [to build the coal plant] here in Subic. If that happens, then we might need to rethink major tourism projects for the freeport.”
He said SBMA has reservations about allowing RP Energy to proceed with the coal plant project because of “the highly disadvantageous contract that they have [with the SBMA].”
“Anybody that I talked to, when I tell them RP Energy will only be paying P1 million to SBMA every year, [they react by saying] ‘That’s outrageous,’” Garcia said.
“RP Energy cannot hold me to that contract. I will not allow it,” he added.
Should Malacañang decide to keep the RP Energy project in Subic, however, Garcia said SBMA was “willing to defer to the Office of the President with four or five conditions.”
These conditions were outlined in a June 7 letter to the newly formed Subic Bay Chamber for Health and Environment, he said.
He said RP Energy and the government should adhere to clean air standards to be set by SBMA based on World Health Organization requirements and that they should acquire the certification of an independent engineer stipulating the viability of ash ponds that could withstand climate change and geological calamities.
The coal-fired project must execute a power purchase agreement, compensate for the public health costs of communities near the plant, and integrate a working greenhouse gas emission reduction program, he said.
On June 5, members of the Zambales Electric Cooperative petitioned the Iba Regional Trial Court to restrain SBMA from issuing permits to RP Energy, arguing that the consortium had abandoned its plan to provide the province with cheap electricity. Robert Gonzaga, Inquirer Central Luzon