FIVE presidents in more than 33 years, with the exemption of President Duterte who has yet to finish his term in 2022, merely resorted to buck-passing, finger-pointing or downright negligence instead of providing a concrete and lasting solution to the Angat Dam water complex intended to provide Metro Manila with unhampered potable water supply 24 hours a day.
Worse, the dam is now treated as if it’s just a typical weather problem, with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) dishing out daily news on the dam’s water level.
On second thought, though, could it be that Pagasa’s unusual interest in the dam is just a coverup for unscrupulous people with administrative and criminal liability for the man-made destruction of the dam’s original 67,000 hectares of virgin forest that had been subjected to unabated logging and turned the dam into an enormous wetland?
Unknown to many, the dam’s size, depth and breadth is just 3 hectares less than the size of Metro Manila’s 64,000 hectares.
From President Corazon Aquino to Presidents Ramos, Estrada, Macapagal-Arroyo and Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, unabated logging continued and the dam’s original 217-meter water level, before Pagasa surprisingly came into the picture, was reported at 85 meters lower and thus deprived Metro Manilans the equivalent of 132 meters deep of reserved water.
According to reports, the Angat Hydropower Electric Power Plant (AHEPP), which is running the plant, is a local corporation co-owned by K-Water (40 percent) with local conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) Global Power, through its subsidiary Powerone Ventures Energy Inc. for the remaining 60 percent, after a 2014 PSALM deal during President Noynoy Aquino’s term.
Under the operations and management agreement between the National Power Corp. and the K-Water, the AHEPP is committed to conduct mandatory rehabilitation projects that would include, among others, strengthening the Angat Dam and dikes.
Originally, the dam aqueduct was supposed to flow 22 cms (cubic meters per second) of clean water from Angat to La Mesa Dam and thus supply the water requirements of Metro Manila and the adjacent provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
What remains of the 67,000 hectares is now only about 25,000 hectares and the reservoir with 85 meters deep, according to reports reaching the National Association of Lawyers for Justice and Peace (NALJP) and the Confederation of Government Employees Organization (COGEO), headed by Atty. Jesus I. Santos, who consistently championed the dam’s preservation.
Santos never got a coherent answer after he wrote Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, bringing to his attention the problem of water shortage, the unabated logging in the Angat Dam watershed and the continued siltation of the water reservoir.
Santos, in his letter to Cimatu, cited the destructive logging in the Angat watershed and the death and destruction due to flooding.
Angat Dam watershed was then a virgin forest and its man-made destruction effectively started when the administration of President Corazon Aquino promulgated on July 16, 1987 Executive Order 224, empowering the National Power Corp. (NPC) to cut trees in the Angat reservation.
Because of the massive denudation, the dam is now seriously silted due to landslides and rampaging volumes of deadly floodwater and debris from the watershed.
In one incident in 1978, floodwaters cascaded down from the watershed, flooding large parts of Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija, killing more than 300 people and destroying houses, poultries, piggeries and other valuables.
On February 22, 2018, fearing that a deadly disaster might happen again, NALJP and the COGEO wrote the DENR to call a meeting regarding the continuous illegal logging in the watershed. The DENR granted this meeting and the governor of Bulacan and the PNP area commander attended.
Surprisingly, the DENR during the meeting informed the group that there was a permit granted by the government to cut 26,000 trees but the DENR reduced it to 3,000 trees only based on a press release dated June 19, 2017.
The NALJP and COGEO asked the DENR local director as to what actions were taken on the following:
“The tree-cutting projects granted to Angat Hydropower Corporation and Dyke Rehabilitation Projects which was contained in a letter dated April 27, 2017, as per letter of the Regional Director dated July 7, 2017.
“What happened to the 3,000 cut trees delivered to the compound of the controversial Hanjin Corporation? According to Director Francisco Milla, of DENR’s Region 3, the trees could only be taken out from the Hanjin compound with his consent.”
What really surprised Santos and local officials is that instead of the national government stopping the denudation of the Angat watershed, it was, in fact, the one abetting the destruction of the watershed.
The Angat Dam was constructed in November 1961 and was completed in July 1967 with a 16-megawatt auxiliary generator and a 200-MW main generator to supply the power requirements of Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
The dam then was also designed to irrigate 23,000 hectares during the wet season and 27,000 hectares during the dry season in 20 towns in Bulacan and Pampanga when the sluice gates were opened.
As the current rainy season progresses, only a presidential action can save the continued destruction of the watershed by ordering those concerned to deepen the dam to its original level and reforest its watershed, instead of ordering to log it, so that the free flow of potable water to Metro Manila is restored.
Not only that. President Duterte should also investigate and punish the people involved in the massive destruction of the dam.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.