Drilon calls for Ilonggo unity for megadam

Senate President Franklin Drilon FILE PHOTO

ILOILO CITY—Senate President Franklin Drilon has rallied support among residents in Iloilo province for a P11.2-billion megadam project in Calinog town—the largest reservoir dam outside of Luzon and considered the biggest infrastructure investment in Western Visayas.

“We hope and we are confident that we can commence construction by November 2015 and by December of 2019, we would be able to inaugurate the project,” Drilon told reporters on the sidelines of a forum on the Jalaur River Multipurpose Project Stage II (JRMP II) last week.

Gerardo Corsiga, National Irrigation Administration (NIA) regional project manager, said the forum was organized to show transparency and to hear concerns and views on the project, but critics were not present. About 400 government officials, irrigators’ associations and Korean consultants were among those who attended.

Cynthia Deduro, executive director of the Dagsaw Panay Guimaras Indigenous People’s Network, said her group was not invited.

The JRMP II is the last of a two-stage project aimed at tapping water for multiple uses from the Jalaur, one of the major rivers of Panay. It involves the construction of a reservoir, an afterbay dam and a catch dam), a 6.6-megawatt hydropower plant, and an 81-kilometer high line canal.

Drilon, a main proponent of the project and main speaker of the forum, stressed that the JRMP II would be the biggest infrastructure project in Iloilo and the biggest project funded with official development assistance from South Korea. He called for unity among Ilonggos to realize the project.

The project is funded by a $203-loan from the South Korean government through its Export-Import Bank’s Economic Cooperation Fund, with a counterpart fund of P2.2 billion from the Philippine government.

Florencio Padernal, NIA administrator, said the construction of the facility had been delayed due to compliance with requirements of lending institutions. The project needed a certificate from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples that the indigenous communities that will be affected have given their consent to it.

Leaders of 16 indigenous communities have each signed a memorandum of agreement with the NIA in support of the project, Corsiga said. Padernal vowed to secure the certification from the indigenous communities by next month and start the construction in five months after the contract passes through a bidding process.

But critics, including other members of indigenous groups, have questioned the process and filed their own resolution against the facility. They have claimed that the project will result in the dislocation of the communities and destroy crops and livelihood.

The megadam will also pose environmental and safety hazards, they have said.

The NIA and other proponents have refuted the allegations. Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas