VARIOUS people’s organizations (POs) and environment groups in the province have slammed the Provincial Government of Negros Occidental for backing the declogging and clearing of waterways project in E.B. Magalona town.
Claiming that it lacks transparency, the POs composed of Tuburan Fisherfolks and Mangrove Development Association (TFAMDA), Latasan Blue Crabs Association (LBCA), Tomongtong Fisherfolks Association (TOFFA), Sitio Buyog Fisherfolks Association (SBFA) and Maanta-angan Marginalized Fisherfolks Association (MMFA) along with Group of Environmental Socialists (Goes) Inc. and Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), hit the project.
They expressed dismay on the recent statement of Provincial Administrator Atty. Rayfrando Diaz II that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) already released a department administrative order that mandated the provincial government to undertake the project so that the occurrence of the floods will be mitigated.
“During the rainy season, flood waters could not go out because sand bars that trap the water between the inland and the sea. This is common all over the world even in the United States. These are the materials that the national government wants to take out,” the provincial government official said.
In the letter of Diaz to DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu dated December 2019, the groups claimed that the provincial administrator told the latter that “because of the disastrous flooding in the river systems and coastal areas of Negros Occidental which affects the communities specially the farmlands and infrastructures, they are going to do the dredging operation in nine barangays of E.B. Magalona and would like for this to be expedited the soonest time possible.”
Basing on the documents they gathered, the POs said they are calling the instigator of this project as deceitful and dubious.
“The POs have been openly contradicting and questioning the agenda of this dredging project, the black sand mining, because the local government has not gone through the proper procedure of calling the public hearing and consultation,” they said, adding that “the government has not presented facts or evidences to back their claim that black sand mining in the coastal barangays of the town and the excavation of the sand bar is the solution to flooding.”
Diaz, in a recent interview, on the other hand, said that based on the order issued by Cimatu “there is no mention of the extraction of black sand. No hazardous waste or chemical compound will be done associated with mining.”
Goes, for its part, is calling the provincial administrator’s statement as sugar coated lies.
The environment group, in a statement, said the project being pushed is a critical project thus, there’s a need to conduct a public hearing as one of the requirements to comply.
It can be recalled that the last public hearing was already conducted on February 26 this year.
POs and environment groups, however, slammed the activity saying that “affected coastal communities, we were never informed nor consulted on this important matter.”
“Telling us that this is already approved by the national government without presenting the Environmental Impact Assessment study is a violation of the law,” Goes said.
The provincial government should know about this since it has battery of lawyers before issuing a statement recommending critical projects, it added.
The project will be undertaken by First Terradev Corporation and Geo Alto after a go signal was given by the DENR, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Public Works and Highways and Department of Transportation.
It is a public-private partnership where the government made the plans and will direct the project, Eric Tagle, president and chief executive officer of First Terradev had said.