Sale of hydro plants may lead to unrest

Monday, 02 April, 2012 Written by Rio N. Araja


A PLAN to sell the Agus-Pulangui hydropower plants could trigger an uprising from the Moro groups, the former and current employees of the National Power Corp. said Monday.


Rabindranath Quilala, secretary general of the Buhayin ang Napocor Atin To or Banat, told reporters they have been in constant touch with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that had been warning of social unrest if the sale was pursued.


“That [sale] may lead to a bigger problem,” Quilala said.


“These hydropower plants are something they treasure very much.”


Quilala said the government must push for the rehabilitation of the two power plants that had been providing cheap electricity in Mindanao instead of selling them.


Various non-government organizations belonging to Laban ng Mamamayan Para sa Katotohanan at Katarungan have joined the calls for the government to address the “artificial” power shortage in Mindanao.


“The power crisis in Mindanao is artificial. The situation here is not just all about the lack of electricity but the high price of power,” a lawyer for the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, Hernani Nicdao, said.


Ghadzali Jaafar, vice chairman for political affairs of the MILF, said they wanted to help solve the power crisis in Mindanao, but would resist the construction of the Pulangi Dam 5 because it would submerge the burial grounds of the Monobos and the B’laan.”


“This fight against the construction of the dam is a legal fight and it doesn’t need arms to deter it,” Jaafar said.


“The Monobos and the B’Laans have no arms and the MILF will not in any way entice them to take up arms.” With Florante S. Solmerin


(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/April/3)