29 September 2007
LEGAZPI CITY—PROTESTERS demanded transparency in the P655-million project to dredge rivers here, raising suspicions it was just being used to enrich corrupt public works officials.
At least 200 members of Church groups and other organizations marched to the DPWH regional office near Aquinas University here, where Mass was celebrated for those who died at the height of Supertyphoon Milenyo a year ago.
Joel Calla, head of the People’s Quarry Movement secretariat, said the poor should benefit from the P655 million project by making it labor-intensive instead of mechanized.
Calla said the Yawa River should be declared an open quarry site.
“The series of calamities worsened poverty,” he said.
His group has been pushing for labor-intensive dredging of rivers, which uses hand tools to dredge and quarry sand, gravel, and boulders, against the mechanized method, which the DPWH claimed has already been completed.
Heavily-silted
The Yawa River is integral in receiving and holding floodwater coming from the gullies of the Mayon Volcano, especially during typhoons.
It became heavily-silted after volcanic debris from the volcano were washed out by heavy rainfall brought by Supertyphoon Reming last year.
The movement estimates that 50 quarry sites can fit in the 11-km river that leads to the Albay Gulf.
The DPWH’s mechanized dredging of the Yawa River alone costs more than P60 million.
“The people should be primary participants in projects being implemented by the government. They should be informed and consulted, which never happened in the implementation of the dredging projects,” Calla said.
Asked where sand dredged from the rivers go, DPWH Regional Director Orlando Roces said they use them as fillers of dumps while some serve as earth-dike structures on riversides.
Dredging projects
Some of the aggregates, he said, were stockpiled at the regional center site but he clarified that the agency is not, in any way, making money from the dredging projects.
Roces added that all the projects were consulted with authorities, like disaster agencies and local government officials.
He said these authorities represent the people so it’s not true that the people’s right to become involved is being undermined.
He said the DPWH followed procurement procedures prescribed by Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Act.
“All dredging projects underwent open bidding. They can always come to this office to check on the documents, we are very much open,” Roces said.
He added that the DPWH does not oppose open quarry in the Yawa River but was wary that flood-control structures along the river channel might be damaged by unregulated quarry activities. Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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