KIBUNGAN, Benguet – Alarmed indigenous peoples (IP) elders in this remote village expressed concern over the alleged political pressure being employed by some officers and benefactors of the Coheco Badeo Corporation (CBC) on them and their barangay officials for them to give in to the conduct of alleged illegal drilling operations in certain areas in their area.
Sources, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from the reported vindictive CBC officers, claimed that for the past weeks, some of their IP leaders and barangay officials had been receiving text messages from certain CBC executives obviously insinuating the need for them to consent to the alleged conduct of drilling operations for the company to be able to cull out the sufficient data to allow the company to justify the construction of its proposed 5-megawatt pump storage hydro power plant in the jurisdiction of their barangay.
Further, the sources revealed that the text messages of the company officers were followed up by separate text messages from a former provincial official with an alleged similar message which is a clear indication that CBC is working heaven and earth to ram the project on the throats of the IPs amidst the expected tremendous negative impact of the drilling operation and the put up of the project to the state of the environment not only in their village, but also to the neighboring towns of Kapangan in Benguet and Santol in La Union.
“We pin our hopes on our new set of barangay officials not to succumb to the political and corporate pressure being employed by CBC on them. We remind them that they were elected to represent and express sincerely the will of the people on any developments coming into their areas of jurisdiction. Serious environmental issues had already been raised against the project but it seems the company allegedly refuses to address the same because what they want is to already build the project without the required permits from concerned government agencies and the local government just to gain profit,” the source stressed.
The sources added that the company never submitted to the barangay council and the municipal government the required environmental compliance certificate (ECC), drilling plan, among other pertinent permits and documents that will justify any drilling operations they intend to conduct and whatever drilling they plan to do are illegal as they have not conducted any process of seeking the consent of affected communities and domain holders.
According to them, while landowners initially consent to the drilling operation because of the attractive compensation offered by the company, which is reportedly P10,000 for every hole drilled, the community as a whole have not actually consented to the said drilling because of the failure of the company to present concrete studies about the project to as opposed to what the company officers presented in the past which were mere conceptual plans not actually supported by hard facts from the ground.
The IPs are questioning the planned drilling operations without permits aside from the fact that CBC was not able to secure the required water rights from the National Water Resources board (NWRB) for the use of the water, among other mandatory permits to be issued by concerned government agencies and the local government, considering the extent of potential damage the project can cause to the state of the environment in the area.
By HENT
