SRPC, NPC compensation not enough

San Manuel, Pangasinan (Sept. 3) — A Japanese professor and a dozen of his students from Ehime University in Japan went to Kamanggaan Resettlement site on September 3 to update a research on the effects of the operation of San Roque Dam to the livelihood of communities affected by it.

The research of Hideyuki Kurita, an International Development Studies professor and a Faculty of Law and Letters in Ehime University, aimed to expand the scope of his previous research on the “Social Impact Assessment on San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam Project” “because the earlier research only focused on some sitios in San Nicolas and San Manuel on 2002 and 2003,” Kurita said. “This is to validate the previous research’s findings, if its results also apply to Sitio Kamanggaan”.

San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam project, according to the earlier research, “was planned not only for the main purpose of generation of power, irrigation, flood control, and water quality control, but also for supplying people the opportunity to develop, or at least not to worsen peoples’ lives.” However the research proved that the damages introduced by the project were not compensated.

“The research this September was planned and implemented to grasp simple but broad area’s figure of damages for gathering attention again from developers and other pertinent agencies.” Kurita explained.

He also added that the result of the update will be brought to Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC), one of the financiers of the San Roque Dam project, to negotiate with the National Power Corporation (NPC) and the San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC) to make effort to alleviate damages.

The residents of Kamanggaan resettlemnent site were once residents in the land now occupied by the dam or affected by the increasing water level of the Agno River. Some of the original settlers who were resettled in Kamangaan though, sold their houses given to them by the government.

Many of the interviewed original settlers depended on gold panning, their livelihood then. Many of them have no jobs after the dam project and even compensation programs given by the government, NPC and SRPC such as piggeries, plantation, and others cannot overcome the damage done on their traditional way of living.

“Haan kami met maka-sayyo ta ngumatngato diay danum” (We can not do gold panning anymore because the water level is too high), one of the residents said. He added that they are also being prohibited from gold panning in the rivers near the San Roque Dam.

Kurita’s students were tasked to do house- to-house interviews of original settlers. They were accompanied by five students from the University of the Philippines Baguio as translators. # Sandra Ferwelo for NORDIS