ANGELES CITY- A militant group has accused Pres. Aquino and Senate Pres. Franklin Drilon of “cornering a total of P6.93 billion, almost 25 percent of the National Irrigation Administration’s (NIA) P28.8-billion budget for next year, for pet projects in their respective provinces.”
“It appears that Liberal Party leadership is on a fund-raising campaign. Mukhang iba ang gustong patubigan ng LP sa 2015,” Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Secretary-General Antonio Flores said.
He said irrigation funds are turning out to be “a campaign kitty for the 2016 presidential elections.” “The Balog-Balog Multi-Purpose Project, a pet project of the Cojuangco-Aquinos, got P5.745 billion, the largest chunk from the NIA’s budget for 2015. P5.745 billion is the biggest annual budget allocated for a single irrigation project in Philippine history,” he said.
He noted “it more than doubled the 11-year budget allocated to the project.” Flores said that “from 2002-2013, a total of P2.18 billion was already allocated for the Balog- Balog Dam project by the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) budget (2002- 2009) and the General Appropriations Act (2010- 2011).”
He said “the Balog-Balog Dam project will only serve the biggest sugar plantation in Tarlac called Hacienda Luisita.”
Flores said the Balog-Balog project was envisioned to provide irrigation to 39,150 hectares of farmlands in the Tarlac towns of Concepcion, Gerona, Pura, Ramos, Paniqui, La Paz and Victoria, and the city of Tarlac. It was also supposed to mitigate flooding in low-lying areas and provide upland communities with the opportunity to pursue inland fish production on the dam’s 2,004-hectare reservoir.
“Billions of public funds were already spent for this anti-peasant project despite opposition from the people of Tarlac,” Flores said. He noted that “residents of San Jose and Capas in Tarlac are opposing the project because it will only cause the destruction of the environment since the project will result in the closure of the Busa River to create a more than 2,000-hectare reservoir with capacity of 625 million cubic meter.”
Flores also said that “communities in Sta. Juliana, Capas, Pantol, Pisapungan, Pula and Pilyen are also prone to flash fl oods because the Buyboy River would be affected by the water level since the landmarks set by NIA in Pantol were placed at the middle of the mountain which is way above the houses in the communities.”
“Tarlac City, Paniqui, Moncada, Concepcion and La Paz are also vulnerable to fl ooding,” Flores added. At the same time, Flores also said “the third biggest chunk, P1.19 billion from the NIA budget, was allocated to the controversial Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project (JRMP), a pet project of Drilon in the province of Iloilo.”
“The P1.19 billion for 2015 plus the controversial P450 million of disbursement acceleration program (DAP) funds are already more than half of the Philippine government’s counterpart for the anti-peasant project,” Flores said recalling that the JRMP appeared as item No. 44 on the list of projects released by Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio Abad.
The JRMP is a foreign-assisted project with a budget of P11.2 billion, where P8.96 billion will be funded thru the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the Korean government. The amount of P2.26 billion will be the Philippine government’s counterpart.
Critics said the JRMP would directly impact and submerge peasant and indigenous people’s communities. An estimated 17,000 farmers and Tumanduk indigenous people will be displaced from their ancestral lands. A petition for a ‘writ of kalikasan’ is pending before the Court of Appeals.
“With the new defi nition of ‘savings’ in the proposed 2015 budget, the P6.9 billion for Balog-Balog and Jalaur will be very vulnerable to plunder. The Aquino government’s 2015 budget is nothing but a source of corruption,” Flores added.
