KABAYAN, Benguet – Concerned indigenous peoples (IPs) from various barangays in this municipality petitioned the provincial government and the Cordillera office of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP-CAR) to stop the ongoing free and prior informed consent (FPIC) for some three proposed minihydro projects because of alleged flaws that is now dividing them and affecting the peaceful enforcement of customary practices in the supposed settlement of disputes.
In their petition, the impacted IPs proposed that the NCIP-CAR instead divide the certificate of pre-condition application into three phases or one per project so that there must be three processes that will be undertaken instead of just one which is being allegedly railroaded in favor of the proponent.
Further, the IPs sought the intervention of concerned provincial officials and government agencies so that Mayor Florante Bantales, Jr. and all other government officials and employees should stay away from the process and not for them to influence the decision of the elders or unduly interfere on the peaceful process.
The petitioners also reminded the FPIC team members not to trick the voting elders in their decision to vote in favor of the controversial project that will be built over the Kabayan ancestral domain, particularly within two major river systems, the Agno river and the Eddet river.
On the other hand, the IPs requested the Cordillera office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to investigate the pressing concern that two of the proposed minihydro projects are situated in the Eddet river which is within the Mount Pulag National Park.
“We need not mention the environmental damage that such structures of the proposed minihydro power plants will cause to the Edet River and the rest of the municipality as well as its effects on our tourism industry where Mount Pulag is our best offering,” the petition stated.
NCIP Administrative Order No. 3 requires that the consent of the Kabayan IPs should be arrived at through the traditional decision-making process which is the ‘tabtabal’ or ‘tongtongan’ that means consensus must be arrived at after the community have extensively talked to each other with one side convincing the other until a consensus is reached.
The petitioners alleged that during the so-called consensus building last August 28, 2-24, no consensus was reached between the IP elders of the Kabayan ancestral domain, thus, the NCIP should have certified that there was no consensus and as such, the Eddet 1 and 2 projects should have been considered as rejected.
The IPs claimed that blatant evidence of the alleged interference employed by Bantales is his issuance of Executive Order No. 35, series of 2024 that created a technical working group (TWG) purportedly intended to provide technical assistance to the IPs but that the real purpose of this group was to allegedly pressure or influence whoever was against the proposed hydro power plant projects to give in and agree in giving their consent in favor of the hydro plants.
According to the concerned IPs, the TWG is composed of the mayor himself and his private secretaries as well as a certain Camilo Alumit, an employee of the Benguet provincial government and other personalities, who are allegedly biased as they are already or have shown their support for the said projects.
The IPs stipulated that the barangay Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representatives and some others were reportedly included in the TWG to masquerade as the real members of the said group.
Moreover, the creation of the TWG and the actuations of the members is considered in gross violation of the Revised Guidelines on FPIC and Related Processes of 2012.
Another issue raised by the IPs against the process is the alleged use of undue influence by the local chief executive and other local government officials and employees to force the Kabayan IPs to decide in favor of the said projects.
“We are being rushed to decide on the three hydroelectric power plants, otherwise, they will be deemed approved as per the existing laws, rules and regulations. This would not have happened had the NCIP not lumped all three projects into just one certificate of pre-condition application. There should have been three applications, one per project but obviously, this was done by the NCIP to benefit the proponent at our expense,” the petition added.
Under the pertinent provision of Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, developers intending to put up high impact projects within the ancestral domain of indigenous peoples must first secure the free and prior informed consent of the owners of the ancestral domain where the said projects will be located.
The IPs expressed hope that the concerned officials of the provincial government and concerned government agencies will heed their call so that they will be able to assert their rights over their domain to make sure that they will be getting the maximum benefits granted to the Ips by existing laws and regulations.
Kabayan has been previously identified by the energy department as one of the rich sources of hydropower because it is one of the headwaters of various river systems flowing to various communities in the lowlands. Contributed article
