KAPANGAN, Benguet – The municipal governments wants relevant government agencies to conduct the needed consultations to clarify numerous allegations of embattled indigenous peoples (IP) leaders on the non-inclusion of their ancestral domain in the conduct of the mandatory free and prior informed consent (FPIC) of the 500-megawatt pump storage project of the controversial COHECO Badeo Corporation in nearby barangay Badeo, Kibugan when some of its barangays will be directly affected by the ambitious project.
Mayor Manny Fermin said numerous inquiries from concerned IP leaders from the town’s different barangays had been brought to his attention regarding the attempt of COHECO Badeo Corporation to circumvent the design of the project to evade its serious impacts to the low-lying communities of Kapangan just to avoid consulting with the IPs who own the ancestral domain, saying that there seems to be merit in the clamor of the IP leaders for the inclusion of the Kapangan ancestral domain in the FPC process for the project because of the effects of the power facility to the sources of livelihood of the people and the domain itself.
Earlier, concerned IP leaders from the Kibungan and Kapangan towns criticized the Cordillera office of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP-CAR) for allegedly refusing to release the results of the field-based investigation it conducted to ascertain the potential areas affected by the project of an enterprising Korean businessman wanting to secure the consent for and the appropriate permits for this project but suspected of selling the consent later just to enrich himself.
“We want concerned government agencies to clarify the valid issues being raised by some IP leaders from the different barangays of Kapangan so that we will be given a chance to validate whether or not their reasons for not including our ancestral domain in the free and prior informed process is valid,” Fermin stressed.
The local chief executive agreed to the contention of the IP leaders that low-lying areas of Kapangan are impact areas of the hydropower plant considering that the lower and upper dams of the facility will be located upstream of the Amburayan river, thus, there seems to be no compelling reason why Kapangan ancestral domain should be excluded from the FPIC process.
According to him, government agencies should be transparent on the matter to avoid suspicion from the IP leaders that some consideration had been given in exchange for excluding Kapangan in the FPIC process when it is clear that it will be severely impacted in the event of the construction of the dams.
Fermin explained Kapangan and Kibungan ancestral domains are contiguous with each other that is why there seems to be no compelling reason why one of the domains will be excluded from the FPIC process when some of its low-lying barangays will surely be affected either through the depletion of water supply of the Amburayan river, the submerging of rice farms and other fish pens serving as sources of livelihood of the thousands of IPs living along the stretch of the river system, and/or upstream siltation.
By HENT
