900 trees cut down for Angat Dam rehab

CITY OF MALOLOS—Some 900 trees have been cut down in the rehabilitation of Angat Dam since 2016, prompting Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado to stop further tree cutting at the dam’s watershed.

The P1-billion Angat rehabilitation project requires the cutting of 2,600 trees, said Russel Rigor, dam operations engineer of Angat Hydropower Corp., during a meeting with Alvarado and Bro. Martin Francisco, chair of the Sagip Sierra Madre Environment Society Inc.

Rigor said the access of a local quarry from where 1 million cubic meters of rocks would be sourced would entail the cutting of trees. He said the rocks would be used to strengthen the dam.

The fallen trees would be replaced with 260,000 trees, Rigor assured.

But Francisco said the government should have secured the free, prior and informed consent of the Dumagats before it decided to open a quarry within the watershed, a part of their ancestral domain.

He said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued tree-cutting permits in October 2016 but it was the National Power Corp. which authorized the zoning of the quarry area for the project.