BENCHWARMER

Cordillera water on my mind
RAMON S. DACAWI

There’s more than what the province of Benguet is finally asking or demanding as its due from the utilization of its natural resources, this time the water that forms from its headwaters to run electric dams and irrigate lowland farms.

Gov. Nestor Fongwan has gone to court to ask payment of over P56 million (or is it P59 million?) in franchise taxes from the operation of the Binga Dam, one of two such plants built in the province in the mid-50s.

Respondents are the National Power Corp. and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., which took over ownership of existing NPC generation assets and liabilities. In the same vein, the province has NPC to pay P116 million as Benguet’s share from the national wealth tax covering the operation of the 345-megawatt San Roque Dam in Pangasinan.

The province, through provincial legal officer Cruzaldo Bacduyan, anchored its demand on a decision of the Department Energy on the operation of a power generating plant by the private firm Luzon Hydro Power Corp. While the plant is in Ilocos Sur, Benguet is entitled to the national wealth tax, being the source of water feeding the power generation facility.

In the case of San Roque, everybody knows the water running its turbines comes from Benguet, through the Agno River. There’s more to demand for, not only by Benguet but byother provinces of the Cordillera which, as a whole, serves as the watershed cradle of Northern Luzon.

I refer again to some provisions of the controversial Electric Power Industry Reform Act which Congress passed on 2001, supposedly to, among other things, lower the cost of energy lighting up our homes.

Under EPIRA, power generators like San Roque are supposed to set aside one centavo for every kilowatt hour produced and sold. This provision, lifted from Energy Regulation Circular 1-94, was included in the EPIRA implementing rules and regulations.

The accumulated sum, as provided, is to fund electrification, development and livelihood, reforestation, watershed management, health and/or environmental enhancement of the local government units hosting the power generating facility.

Here’s the catch, as defined in the EPIRA IRR: “The host LGU or region is where the hydro reservoir is located…..” With that facility-based definition, the LGUs entitled to a share from the fund are the barangays where San Roque was built, San Manuel and San Nicolas as hosttowns, Pangasinan as host province and Region 1 as host region.

Yet the watersheds of San Roque which need to be reforested and enhanced are up here, not down there in Pangasinan. In a press conference called by then Energy SecretaryVincent Perez on Oct. 10, 2001 when he was here for a public hearing on the IRR of the EPIRA, I suggested a redefinition based on a river-basin concept, as the power-generating water comes from Benguet.
The issue was also raised during a meeting of the Regional Development Council just before the public hearing. It was later raised with the same body by Ifugao Rep. Solomon Chungalao who is concerned over the lack of benefits accruing to the keepers of the watersheds of the Magat Dam. President Arroyo, who presided over the meeting at the Presidential Mansion here, directed the NPC to look into the issue

It was raised before the then three sectoral representatives representing the Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives, for them to lobby for a redefinition. The least the present crop of APEC legislators can do is support the bill Chungalao filed regarding this.

I was personally elated when then Secretary Perez promised to consider redefinition, noting the same as an “insightful observation”. When the final IRR came out, the original definition was adopted as is.

Over in Hungduan where the Hapao River serves as a big feeder to the Magat Dam, Chungalao’s constituents said they’d go as far as diverting the water flow if nothing is plowed back to them as keepers of the watersheds. It must have been an Ifugao joke but hardly when one thinks how their ancestors carved whole mountainsides into rice terraces with the barest of tools.

Benguet and Ifugao need not lobby alone towards a better deal on the exploitation of Cordillera’s water resources. A redefinition will mean even Bauko in Mt. Province, which serves as the headwaters of the Agno, can demand for a share.

Baguio will likewise be entitled as its Lucnab, Kias and Happy Hollow barangays are within the Agno watershed. Despite the murky water it delivers, the city, as headwater to the Balili, can then claim benefits from the operation of the mini-hydros of Hedcor downriver.

There’s more than what Benguet is rightfully demanding as long overdue. After all, we also need to redefine the queer concept of the build-operate-transfer scheme that was pioneered in the Cordillera for the sake of national development.

They built the mines and dams here, operated them and transferred the gold andelectric power (including the taxes) to Metro-Manila. (e-mail:rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).