The San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam is the third dam to be built on the Agno River. The first two are the Ambuklao and Binga dams in Benguet which were built in the 1950's and 1970's. The indigenous Ibaloy people were made to sacrifice their land, livelihood and their very lives for these two dams.
Now, the national government asks a third sacrifice. Only this time, they ask it not only of the Ibaloy people of Benguet, but of the Pangasinan people as well.
This time, more than 213,000 people will be affected. And this figure does not include the Filipino taxpayers who will shoulder millions of dollars loaned by the government for the project and the Filipino consumers who will have no other choice but to purchase electric power from a foreign consortium who will set the price of the much-needed electricity they produce. This figure excludes approximately 1.5 million potential victims of a major national disaster should this defective dam be unable to withstand an earthquake or a strong typhoon.
Granting a national disaster does not occur within our period, what will the next generation of Filipinos do with a megadam full of mine tailings? The environmental, financial and technical challenge they will face will be staggering - or they will not survive the national disaster.
The Government of the Republic of the Philippines, the National Power Corporation, the San Roque Power Corporation, other foreign investors in the country, and the local elite.
The SRMDP is a flagship project of former President Fidel V. Ramos. It is touted as "one of the country's springboards to NIChood." Government officials expect the dam to entice more foreign investors into the Northern Luzon Region because it will supply the humungous power needs of mining companies, golf courses, hotels, condominiums, restaurants, parks, real estate subdivisions, special economic zones where most foreign multi-national companies are located, and agro-industrial estates.
President Erap promised his predecessor he would continue implementing the project. It was and remains to be a priority project of the National Power Corporation (NPC).
The San Roque Power Corporation is a foreign consortium of Japan's Marubeni Corporation, US' Sithe Energies, and the Kansai Electric Power Company, also of Japan.
They will construct the dam, the profit-generating component of the project, under a Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) scheme. Under this scheme, they can build the hydroelectric plant by loaning money from various banks. The Philippine government will guarantee the payment of these loans. Under this same scheme, the SRPC is assured of a market and a worry -free return of investment because the NPC will buy the power produced by the dam at a price SRPC has set. The BOT contract they signed with the government gives them all the time to earn back their investments and make a huge profit before turning the power plant over to the Philippine government. By then, the life span of the dam shall have ended, leaving us with a worthless and potentially dangerous structure in our midst.
Their ricefields, vegetable farms, pasturelands, orchards, gold panning areas, and homes will be submerged and destroyed by silt and sediment and by rising floodwaters that shall be released from the dam during heavy rains and typhoons.
The sacred burial grounds of the indigenous Ibaloi people living upstream of the Agno in Benguet will also be lost forever. But not only that. The dam will bring about the ethnocide of the whole community of Dalupirip, the last bastion of Ibaloi culture. And this is not the first time the Ibaloys were asked to sacrifice their lives in the name of " national development."
Present forestry laws ban the pursuit of economic activities in these areas. Even granting the residents will not be dislocated from their homes, they will not survive if they cannot use the land which has supported them for generations.
Project proponents claim the SRMDP will irrigate 87,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija and Tarlac. But an independent team of environmental experts who reviewed the project revealed that:
The findings of the environmental experts' team is clear. The San Roque Dam is not designed to function as a "guardian of water quality". It will function as a large mine tailings dam and will contain toxic chemicals unsuitable for its intended water supply purposes. If the government wishes to push through with this plan, the construction of an expensive, active water treatment facility will be necessary. However, this will make the cost of piped-in water for household use very expensive, active water treatment facility will be necessary. However, this will make the cost of piped - in water for household use very expensive and therefore inaccessible to the majority of the Northern Luzon Population.
The dam is located only 26 km west of the Digdig Fault, the primary branch of the Philippine fault zone. In addition to this, Director Punonogbayan of PHILVOCS also reported the presence of several other minor faults close to the dam area. However, there is no indication that a seismic hazard analysis has been conducted for the purposes of designing a dam capable of withstanding a major earthquake in the region, should one occur.
Experts also criticized the design of the dam's spillway and freeboard, saying, it is not clear which data and which model project engineers used to design the present spillway and freeboard. The independent team of environmental experts feared the present design may not be able to prevent dam-overtopping during extreme storm events. "Dam overtoppong can lead to dam failure with catastrophic consequences" for approximately 1.5 million people living downstream of the dam.
