Have you ever been reminded of where all that water came from? When you think of tribes, what comes into mind?
On top of your head, you might imagine mountains, hidden areas, or maybe the ones you can get tattoos from. This time I’d like to introduce you to the Dumagats.
The Dumagats reside in an area that is threatened to be taken from them. The ancestral site in the Kaliwa Watershed Forest Reserve in the Sierra Madre is being made into a Dam. The planned Dam will provide 600 million liters of water. But why should we care, you might ask? Doesn’t it mean more water for us? Although beneficial for us, we exchanged that amount of water for their homes. This kind of project often displaced the indigenous communities out of their homes. In this pandemic, a sufficient and sanitized water supply is essential. The Dam has a pending construction, the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project, under the Duterte administration in the “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) program. It is said that it will serve as a long-term solution to Metro Manila’s water woes.
In a Report by Inquirer.Net 2021: “The construction will affect about 1,465 families, according to an executive summary on the project prepared by the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau.” Aileen, a member of the Dumagat-Remontado tribe, expresses that the dam takes away their ancestral home, livelihood, identity, and livelihood.
As you have learned, studying science, trees, and nature are natural combatants to floods. Largely isolated on the Sierra Madre, the Dumagats live off the tilled land and the forest, their rustic environs allowing little buffer from natural disasters. Although there are some beneficial outputs, there are also setbacks if the Kaliwa Dam is built.
The China Energy Engineering Corp. has expressed its support for the project. Whereas, the STOP Kaliwa Dam Network, leaders from Dumagat communities in General Nakar in Quezon province were invited to discuss a memorandum of agreement validation and community royalty development program (CRDP) from January 24 to 29.
The gnawing question: “ Do the benefits outweigh or justify the costs?”
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Written by: By: Nethaniah Jan J. Lim
Layout and Design by: Joe-Mica Dobles
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