Bulatlat News
By MARIDEL IRISH U. CATILOGO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – It has been more than 60 years since the Philippine government signed into law the construction of a megadam that is supposed to regulate flooding, provide irrigation, and generate energy in the upper portion of the municipality of Calinog, Iloilo.
Deemed the largest reservoir megadam in Western Visayas, the first phase of the megadam was completed in the 1980s. However, it was only during the administration of the late President Benigno C. Aquino III when the Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project Stage II (JRMP II) was picked up again under a $203-million loan agreement with the South Korean government.
The megadam project has since met criticisms as it stood to submerge hectares of ancestral domains, and displace about 17,000 indigenous peoples and a million more people who may be affected by the flooding that the dam may cause.
Read: ‘Damn the dams’ | Indigenous peoples say no to destructive energy projects
Earlier this year, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed his continuing support for the construction of the megadam. Months later, no less than the United Nations special rapporteur on climate change and human rights Ian Fry called on the Philippine government to look into the environmental impacts and human rights abuses in the construction of the controversial megadam.
“Their only crime was that they had protested against the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam Project. These people are stewards of their ancestral lands and the primary custodians of the environment,” Fry said in a press conference concluding his official visit to the Philippines.
As of September 2023, the megadam project has obtained nearly 70 percent of the overall implementation, while 60 percent of its irrigation component has already opened.
The right to development of indigenous peoples in the region has been ignored since the beginning of the project. The United Nations defines the right to development as “an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”
“The effect of [the mega dam project] had a large impact on our family’s daily livelihood. We don’t have food to eat, income, and job. That is our major problem, and we need immediate assistance from the government so that they can help us in our livelihood,” Romeo Castor, 65, a resident of Alibunan village in Calinog and a member of the Tumanduk tribe, said in an online interview.
Major issues surrounding the ‘Jalaur Dam’
The JRMP II project consists of two areas which are called the ‘upland area’ and ‘lowland area’. The upstream area involves the three dams, reservoir, and relocation site while the downstream portion covers the irrigation component.
“In the upland area when we started, the location in which the dam was constructed is a residual forest. Meaning to say there is no forest cover already as it is a cultivated area in Calinog upland area,” the dam’s management chief and spokesperson Steve Cordero said.
In an online interview, Cordero said affected families including indigenous people and farmers were consulted prior to the implementation of the project.
The National Irrigation Agency has also established the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Action Plan program. For the upland area, around 47 family houses were directly affected by the construction, of whom 32 opted for group relocation while 15 families received cash compensation.
Meanwhile, some 265 families lost their homes in the lowland area of Calinog. Of these, 223 families have relocated while compensation for the remaining households are in process. In total, more than 2,800 households were directly affected in the construction of the project.
However, human rights groups debunked Cordero’s claim, saying that consultations happened only in 2012, which was about three years since the Philippine government began what they referred to as a “secret” feasibility study of building the second phase of the megadam.
Affected families, too, were not offered the assistance they need. Castor’s family, for one, who earns a living by planting coffee, coconut, and other fruits, had nowhere to go.
“Unfortunately, the relocation [site] is far from their original source of livelihood and while they were offered a livelihood, it is different from what they used to do,” John Ian Alenciaga, coordinator of the grassroots Jalaur River for the People Movement said in an online interview.
A family, for example, was offered a fruit stand business without considering its sustainability and appropriateness.
‘Benefits’ outweighed by negative impacts
For human rights groups, the promised progress that the project would supposedly bring to their communities is nowhere to be found.
Other than the irrigation and agricultural developments in the region, the project also aims to produce a 31,840-hectare irrigation to farm lots in Iloilo, adding 9,500 hectares. The project is expected to contribute at least 71.54 percent increase of rice production to 338,000 tons per year, higher than the current 141,000 metric tons per year, Cordero said.
Alenciaga, however, said that the existing irrigation of the Tumanduk is not as advanced compared to other irrigations. Majority of the farmlands located in the downstream area still relies on rain. “Unfortunately, a large portion of the covered areas are sugarcane areas owned by landlords. How about the small farmers? Our call from the beginning is to rehabilitate the existing systems [of irrigation].”
Apart from the irrigation, the Jalaur dam is expected to generate 6.6 megawatts (MW) hydroelectric power and 86 million liters per day of bulk water to expand the region’s demand for power and potable water.
The total power generation of Panay as of June 2023 is 802 MW installed capacity and 695 MW dependable capacity, while the current peak demand for the year is 465 MW.
“In this case, Panay is expected to export supply of up to about 230 MW to Visayas sub-grid,” Energy Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan said in an interview.
In July 2023, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) approved the loan restructuring for the completion of the project amounting to P8.48 billion. The original price of the megadam project was priced at P11.2 billion.
However, Alenciaga said that the huge amount of public spending does not justify the benefits of the multibillion project which will be added to the country’s national debt.
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed the national government’s outstanding debt reached a record of P14.48 trillion as of end-October, up by 6.16 percent from the same period a year ago.
Meanwhile, its external debt service – the amount of money a country needs to pay back its foreign creditors including both the principal and interest payments on its external debt surged by 130.7 percent to $10.846 billion as of end-September, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed.
The debt is equivalent to 3.5 percent of the country’s economic output as measured by the Gross Domestic Product.
Militarization, rights violations
In addition, the heavy militarization has prevented affected families from going about their daily lives, including attending to their farmlands and their access to basic commodities.
“There were reports that their supplies have been confiscated or controlled. Their unity is basically destroyed because of the ongoing militarization,” Alenciaga said.
The Tumandok people, which has a population of 94,000, is mainly located in the municipalities of Jamindan, Calinog, Lambunao, and Tapaz, the Tumandok people remained to be the largest indigenous people’s group in Central Panay region.
They have a long history of struggle and resistance in defending their ancestral lands.
Read: The struggles and aspirations of Tumandok in Panay
Read: Gov’t troops massacre 9 Tumandok in Panay
One of the bloodiest attacks against them was launched three years ago, on the eve of Dec. 30, 2020, which left nine Tumandok leaders dead and 16 arrested. They were released from detention in October last year.
Before the killing, they were subjected to relentless harassment and red-tagging – an unfortunate testament to how the Philippines continue to be among the most dangerous countries in Asia for land and environmental defenders, according to a report from independent watchdog Global Witness.
“No one has been held accountable. There was no case filed,” Alenciaga added.
Asserting the right to development
For Sonny Africa, executive director of think tank Ibon Foundation, government’s infrastructure projects are barely evaluated and short-term advantages are misrepresented as having long-term development effects in the community.
“Our biggest reservation is that government infrastructure projects are not really conceived as part of a larger plan for agricultural development and Filipino industrialization. This means that they are not assessed according to how much they contribute to the all-important building of agricultural and indigenous industrial capacity which are the necessary foundations of job generation, productivity increases and long-term development,” Africa said.
Africa also noted that the government’s framework of strategic agricultural and industrial development is critical, and its absence severely constrains the gains from infrastructure spending.
“We are facing a lot of problems, especially that everything is expensive nowadays. If the [government] will pity us because of the loss of our livelihoods, it is up to them to decide on what is good for us,” Berna Castro, a Tumanduk member, said in an interview. (JJE, RVO) 
This story is supported by the German Embassy Manila as part of Bulatlat’s project titled, “Advancing human rights reporting in the Philippines as a tool for upholding gender fairness, democracy and accountability.”
