BAGUIO CITY – Energy Undersecretary Benito Ranque assured concerned stakeholders in the region that the agency will take a second look on its existing guidelines relative to the availment of host communities of the one centavo per kilowatt-hour being given by power generation companies for the implementation of energy-related projects geared towards improving the supply of renewable energy to the grid.
Ranque urged local officials who have valid concerns relative to the availment of assistance from the funds that are being earmarked for host communities pursuant to the provisions of Energy Regulations 1-94 to write him directly about their concerns considering that he is the one directly in charge of local governments and special concerns so that the issues being raised will be given prompt and appropriate action.
Earlier, a number of local officials in the region pursuing the preservation and protection of watersheds complained on the difficulty of accessing financial assistance from the energy department through Energy Regulations No. 1-94 considering that they are not part of what is lawfully defined as host communities based on existing rules and regulations even if their localities play host to watersheds serving as the headwaters of rivers providing abundant water supply for operating dams.
The concerned local officials argued that efforts of local governments, even if they are distantly located from the operating power plants, to sustain the preservation and protection of watersheds should be given equal importance by the government agencies because the forests serve as the major source of abundant supply of water running the turbines of power plants located along the stretch of major river systems.
“We will look into the concerns raised by local officials hosting watershed areas of power generation plants that were not included in the memorandum of agreement entered into by the power plant operators and the host local governments aside from other issues on fraudulently issued service contracts over rivers without consultations with the local officials and the concerned indigenous peoples organizations,” Undersecretary Ranque stressed.
For example, Bauko, mountain Province serves as host to the most portions of the Mount Data National Park, which is the headwaters of the Chico, Agno, Magat and Abra rivers, and located along the Agno rivers are the Ambuclao, Binga and San Roque dams while situated along the Magat river is the Magat dam.
However, Bauko Mayor Abraham B. Akilit claimed that the local government cannot access funding assistance from Energy Regulation No. 1-94 because it is not classified as a host community when the town is aggressively working for the preservation and protection of the forests to make sure that there will be abundant water supply for the said river systems.
Mayor Akilit time and again reiterated that the definition of host communities should be expanded by the energy department to the areas serving as the headwaters of the river systems providing water for the power generation plants because it will be useless for them to maintain the forests when it will be the power generation plant operators and the peripheries of the dams that are benefitting from the funds that have mandated to be segregated for energy-related projects in the host communities of the said plants.
By HENT
