MANILA, September 19, 2008— A coal-power plant in an area earmarked for eco-tourism is yet to get-off the ground but already it is stoking up anger among several groups.
The most vocal opponents to the approved 164-megawatt coal plant at the heart of Iloilo City are groups of environmentalists and influential leaders of the Catholic Church.
They fear the plant will do more harm than good for them and the environment stretching from inside a 4-hectare property of the Panay Power Corp. in Barangay Ingore in Lapaz District to other nearby towns.
The plant would be completed in 2010.
Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo admitted fear among them that the power plant owned by the PPC and a Metrobank subsidiary, Global Business Power Corp. will soon operate in the area.
“It’s really saddening because people here (in Iloilo) are really against it,” he said.
Lagdameo, also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said they want power but a “clean power.”
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has recently granted an environment certificate of compliance to the proposed project.
The Jaro archdiocese has yet to see any detailed ECC for the project but is embarking on a public campaign to make local people aware of the dangers of coal fuel toxins.
Lagdameo said it’s hardly complicated for them to understand why the government is pushing such project that has long been proven to be environmentally risky.
He said it is also contrary to a government campaign for renewable energy.
“There is no such thing as clean coal fired power plant especially here (in our country) where the process of giving approval (by the authorities) is often questionable,” the archbishop said.
The international environmental group Greenpeace also lashed at the DENR for approving the project.
In a statement, Greenpeace Southeast Asian campaign manager Beau Baconguis said that in granting permit, DENR secretary Lito Atienza “has revealed his monumental hypocrisy, pretending to talk about climate change” while approving coal plant projects.
“By approving the ECC of the Iloilo City coal plant project, Secretary Atienza has shown his true colors—it’s as black and dirty as the coal plants he promotes,” he said. (Roy Lagarde)
