Metro Infanta Foundation

INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON
Protect-Sierra Madre call reaches the US

By Delfin Mallari Jr.
Inquirer
Last updated 10:56pm (Mla time) 07/11/2007

LUCENA CITY -- A Catholic priest’s call to protect the Sierra Madre mountain ranges has been heard, even as far as the United States.

In March, Fr. Pete Montallana, head of the church-based environmentalist group Task Force Sierra Madre (TFSM) in northern Quezon, appealed for assistance in protecting the remaining virgin forests in Luzon.

“We know that the work to save Sierra Madre from greed is also in your hearts. We need to join hands. Participate in our work by volunteering your time and talent and/or by pledging an amount to sustain our initiatives,” Montallana wrote in his letter.

The letter was posted in the website of the Metro Infanta Foundation (MIF), a Filipino-run nonprofit organization based in Colorado, USA, by its president, Mila Glodava.

Thank-you letter

On July 5, the website showed Montallana’s thank-you letter to Fr. Andrew Kemberling, parish priest of St. Thomas Moore Church in Centennial, Colorado, after the parish donated $1,000. Much of the money, the Filipino priest said, will be used for the TFSM’s information and educational campaign against the threat posed by a government dam project in the Sierra Madre River.

“Your help has given a lot of opportunity to print materials to inform people about the dam, to transport people who wanted to join the public consultations that we have organized, and to enable us to reach very far places to alert people about the dams,” he told Kemberling.

The campaign will focus on the Laiban dam project of the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System in Tanay, Rizal, which will be built in an area where geologic fault lines have been identified.

Then known as the Kaliwa-Kanan (Left-Right) rivers, the Laiban traverses the slopes of Sierra Madre and exits into the Pacific shoreline. During the Marcos regime, the dam project was proposed to be a part of the so-called industrial complex in northeastern Luzon.

Due to opposition by indigenous peoples, the project was shelved, leaving only two diversion tunnels as memories of the aborted project. But the Arroyo administration plans to resurrect it as a water source for Metro Manila.

Opposition

“We have now the advantage that the mayor of General Nakar and the reelected mayor of Infanta oppose the dam. The mayor of Tanay where the dam would be constructed also has taken the stance in favor of the people. However, it is not easy to oppose a project of the national government,” Montallana said.

He expressed fear that the proposed dam in the mountain watershed would displace about 3,500 families, mostly upland farmers and indigenous peoples, in seven barangays in Tanay and another in General Nakar.

The resulting diminished water flow in the Agos River could affect navigation, irrigation and fisheries in the river and estuary, the priest said.

“[If] the dam breaks, a repeat of the destructive flood in 2004 can result in deaths and losses of property in General Nakar, Infanta and Real in Quezon,” he said.

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