Angeles court halts sewerage project

THIS POND beside the Sacobia River in the Mabalacat City side of the Clark Special Economic Zone is one of two being developed for a waste disposal facility by a Filipino company and its Korean partners. Clark Development Corp., however, is opposing the project because its proponents did not sign lease agreements with the state-owned agency. E.I. REYMOND OREJAS/CONTRIBUTOR

CLARK FREEPORT—A court in Angeles City has ordered a Filipino firm, two Korean companies and their community partners to stop building a sewerage handling and disposal facility beside a river and bridge at the Sacobia side of this economic zone.

Executive Judge Omar Viola of the Angeles City Regional Trial Court issued the temporary restraining order based on a petition of Clark Development Corp. (CDC). The case tests the authority of CDC over the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ), where Sacobia is located, and its role as manager of a vast ancestral domain.

An Inquirer check at the site in Barangay Calumpang in Mabalacat City showed no construction activities on Saturday.

What the proponents—LC Soliman Waste Management, LC Soliman Septic Tank Disposal, Tesuphils Inc. and Rainbow Holdings—had carved so far are two earth ponds, about 300 square meters each, from out of the northeastern bank of the Sacobia River.

No approval

In its complaint, CDC sought to stop the project because the proponents did not sign lease agreements with the state agency, which was tasked by law with administering the CSEZ.

According to CDC, the proponents did not also seek the approval of the state agency as manager of an ancestral domain spanning 10,323 hectares of land or obtain the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the tribe or the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

It said the sale of 1.5 ha in the village of Calumpang violated the terms of Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title RO3-BAM-1204-025-A. CDC’s management is annotated, without amendments, in the title, a copy showed.

CDC said it did not process and evaluate the environmental compliance certificate that the proponents obtained from the Environmental Management Bureau, making this “invalid.”

Contradiction

Lydia Soliman, president of the main proponent firm, questioned the authority of CDC over the area.

“That your continued insistence that the ancestral domains of the Aetas [are] within your special exclusive economic zone contradicts the spirit of Republic Act No. 8371 (Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act) and our Aeta partners respectfully insist that upon delineation of their ancestral domain/land and the subsequent issuance of their title, their lands are no longer part of the territories under CDC reign,” Soliman told CDC in a July 7 letter.

She said her group’s Aeta partners had told them that CDC “cannot [insist] on invoking the joint management agreement that it executed with them as various conditions, legal requirements and the implementing rules and regulations, which are necessary for its effectivity and implementation, have not yet been complied with and/or adopted.”