By: Jose Santino S. Bunachita 2:14 AM April 29th, 2016
CEBU CITY—Applause
broke out inside the Cebu City council session hall on Wednesday after the
council’s committee on environment announced a decision to reject the proposal
to put up a 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant in a densely populated urban
poor village here.
At least 100
residents of Barangay Sawang Calero, all clad in black shirts, gave white roses
to councilors who did not object to the committee recommendation.
“Now we can sleep
soundly at night,” said Marites Busico, 36 and a mother of five children who
are among the Sawang Calero residents who burst into tears upon hearing the
committee findings.
The committee on environment
cited the lack of social acceptance in denying the request of Ludo Power Corp.
for an endorsement of the project.
A council endorsement
is prerequisite for an environmental compliance certificate.
Nelson Yuvallos, Ludo
public relations manager who was present at Wednesday’s session, declined to
issue a statement.
Ludo wants to use its
12.6-hectare property in Sawang Calero, covering about half of the entire
barangay’s total land area of 24.8 hectares, for the coal-fired power plant.
The property used to host a 10-MW power plant which is no longer operational.
The project would be
built in partnership with Team Energy, a consortium in the Philippines composed
of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp. of Japan, which also operates
the 1,218-MW coal-fired power plant in Sual, Pangasinan province.
The Ludo plant
planned to use pulverized coal from Indonesia, which the firm said would reduce
dust emissions in the village.
Ludo also dangled
economic benefits to Barangay Sawang Calero and four other villages.
The villages, Ludo
said, would get an income share of 1 centavo per kilowatt hour of electricity
that the plant would produce.
But residents and
environment groups opposed the project, saying it would violate the Clean Air
Act and a local law that declared a moratorium on highly polluting projects.
According to the
seven-page committee report, a power plant that surpasses a rated capacity of
30 MW is considered environmentally critical.
Unlike the Sual power
plant, which is in an area near the sea, the committee said Ludo’s project site
is heavily populated.
The committee said
its finding on the project “tells us to err on the side of caution if only to
ensure the health and safety of our people and the environment.”
The committee said
while the four villages—Sawang Calero, Duljo Fatima, Pahina San Nicolas and
Suba Pasil—submitted resolutions endorsing the project, they did not present
minutes of meetings of public hearings that had been held on the project.
It said City
Ordinance No. 1656, or the Revised Zoning Ordinance of the City of Cebu, bans
the establishment of power plants in Sawang Calero, which is classified as a
low intensity industrial district.
Power plants are
allowed only in medium or high intensity industrial districts.
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