Class suit vs geothermal project in Kanlaon filed

MANILA, Philippines - At least 200 people, including children, will lodge before the Bacolod Regional Trial Court Wednesday a petition to stop the Energy Development Corp. from entering the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park (MKNP) buffer zone for geothermal development. Online news site Visayan Daily Star reported that the petitioners' lawyer Andrea Si said they would seek a temporary retraining order and a permanent injunction on the EDC move. Si said the petitioners remain opposed to the tapping of geothermal power from the buffer zone and to the purchase of power for Negros Occidental from a coal-fired plant in Cebu. They said government and the business sector should push for alternative renewable power, such as hydro, solar and wind, and should not compromise what little is left of the province's forest. The lawyer said that as of Monday, the class suit got 170 signatories, including 55 children, but she expects the number to go beyond 200. The signatories are from Bago, Murcia, Bacolod and La Carlota. Si said the children were represented by their parents in the suit. But she said Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra and Fr. Anecito Buenafe, head of the Diocese of Bacolod Social Action Center, were not included as signatories even if they support class suit. "We would like them to maintain the separation of the church and state," she said. But she said Navarra has brought the concerns of their group against the EDC’s entry into the buffer zone to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ meeting in Manila. Si said the class suit will ask the court to stop EDC from entering the buffer zone because of questions on the constitutionality of Republic Act 9154, which established MKNP as a protected area and a peripheral area as a buffer zone. The suit will also question the Energy Development Corporations’ (EDC) Environment Compliance Certificate and the firm’s plan to drill for geothermal energy from the buffer zone to the MKNP protected area. RA 9154 is a class legislation that makes EDC a part of the Protected Areas Management Law, and was passed without the appropriate public acceptability hearings, Si claimed. Si said while RA 9154 allows the EDC entry into the buffer zone it still cannot enter the area because it does not have a valid ECC from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Tapping 40 megawatts of geothermal power from the buffer zone is not worth destroying irreplaceable rich biodiversity in the area, she added. Energy officials earlier warned that Negros Occidental no longer has reserve power and its power shortage will worsen by 2010 if it does not have new sources of energy in place by then. Si said there is adequate power for Negros from other geothermal power plants but brownouts occurred to create a power shortage scenario. "We are being made to swallow the way the energy crisis is being presented to us," she said. For his part, Gov. Isidro Zayco said he will sign an executive order creating an oversight monitoring and compliance committee to ensure EDC's compliance of the strict conditions set by the provincial council. - GMANews.TV