SONA project: Contractors quarrying illegally

TABUK CITY, Kalinga - According to the records of the Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO), only two of the eight SONA (state of the nation address) project contractors in the province have permits to extract sand and gravel issued by the provincial governor through the Provincial Mining Regulatory Board (PMRB).

The ENRO named the two contractors as Omengan Construction and Development Corporation (OCDC) and VUC Engineering (VUC) both of which obtained their permits to quarry for 2009 on June 30 or six months late.

Environment and natural resources officer Dominador Tumbali also admitted that none of the SONA contractors have environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) and free prior informed consent (FPIC) from the tribes in whose ancestral domains they are quarrying.

Regarding the ECC, Tumbali said that permittees are supposed to apply in January since their work are usually done in the first two quarters of the year but none of the SONA contractors did “so we have nothing to indorse for the conduct of the ECC process.”

He said that there is only one quarry outfit in the province which has an ECC. The outfit is not involved in the SONA project

As for the FPIC, Tumbali said that they have been conducting consultations but only with the barangay officials and not with the concerned indigenous groups.

“Henceforth, we will require the companies to undergo consultations with the host tribes,” Tumbali said.

Reminded of the provision of the comprehensive land use plan (CLUP) of this city designating the stretch of the Chico River from barangay Dupag down to barangay Bantay which includes barangay Lucog where OCDC and VUC are quarrying as tourism zone and therefore off limits to quarrying, Tumbali said that that too is an issue.

“The problem is they never come to ask permission before they go down to the river. We only learn when the quarrying is already ongoing. We just assume that the extracting companies confine their operation to established gravel pits of the DPWH,” Tumbali said. .

An ENRO personnel who requested anonymity said that it cannot be helped if SONA contractors working in the Tabuk portion of the project quarry in the prohibited zone because downstream, stones for masonry and riprap are already scarce.

The ZZW learned from the ENRO that the projected sand and gravel tax from the 17 packages of the SONA project in Kalinga for 2008 and 2009 is P5M but as of this writing, only P100,000.00 has been paid by the contractors.

Tumbali, however, is not worried about the low collection saying that to date some of the 2008 SONA packages have not yet been accomplished and that contractors usually pay their sand and gravel tax when they get their final payments.

Tumbali also expects that the just signed memorandum of agreement between the provincial government and the DPWH which requires the latter to automatically deduct from payments of contractors the sand and gravel tax due from them will facilitate the payment of the estimated taxes.

Tumbali complained that the collection of sand and gravel tax has been taken for granted until the coming of the SONA projects “when all of a sudden it became important.”

“The mineral program of the government is not the responsibility of just one officer. All stakeholders should contribute their part in the protection of the resources. Our vehicle cannot go to the municipalities of Lubuagan and Balbalan and we are undermanned. Every concerned agency should assist us,” Tumbali said. **By Estanislao Albano, Jr., ZZW

SONA projects: Implementation in Kalinga worse than before - Bantay Lansangan

TABUK CITY, Kalinga - The local chapter of the SONA project watchdog Bantay Lansangan (BL) is disappointed that even after the DPWH effected changes in the administration and supervision of SONA projects in the province, the quality of implementation has not improved.

The group noted in its recent report submitted to the regional SONA project office and the BL central office that nothing has changed from the time of their initial monitoring activities late last year as far as the quality of the work is concerned.

“It is even worse now because there are several blocks where the rain scoured the pavement because apparently, the workers poured the cement while it was raining. This did not happen before,” Rev. Luis Aoas, chairman of the Kalinga and Apayao Religious Sector Association (KARSA) which acts as the local chapter of the BL, told the media.

In their report which was also signed by representatives of the DPWH-Kalinga who joined the joint monitoring activity, the group strongly recommended, among other things, that the seven blocks of pavement in the Tinglayan-Suyo section and two blocks in the Suyo-Tangadan section which they said were scoured by the rain be removed and replaced at the expense of the contractor.

They also urged the removal and replacement of the undersized steel bars of the Mamaga box culvert and likewise the improperly constructed riprap at Bangad Centro, Tinglayan.

BL-Kalinga also criticized the lack of supervision on the part of engineers assigned to the SONA projects in the province saying that during the time they inspected the multi-billion project on June 17, only one SONA engineer was in the site and that they only met the other engineers going to the project site very late in the afternoon.

“Workers (especially on riprap) take instructions from contractors and not from the engineers assigned giving poor quality of project to end user. Project engineers assigned in the area must be present to properly supervise workers especially in critical times like the pouring of cement,” the report said in one part.

“We are very disappointed because we expected that the changes made by Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane in the management of the project would improve the quality of the work but the opposite has happened. The regional director has been changed and local DPWH engineers have been assigned to supervise the construction but things only got worse. During the first month after the local engineers took over, the work improved but it was only for a while because now, it appears that things are worse than before,” Aoas said.

Aoas related that when Ebdane inspected the project on January 2, the BL-Kalinga requested that local engineers take over the supervision of the SONA project from the regional DPWH engineers because of the group’s observation at the time that the projects supervised by local DPWH engineers were better implemented than the SONA projects.

“Ebdane told us that that it is against the policies of the agency but nonetheless granted our request. We also asked for the replacement of the regional director and his assistant because of our observation that they had been remiss in the proper implementation of the SONA project. We now have a new regional director but the flaws in the implementation noted before still remain,” Aoas lamented. **By Estanislao Albano Jr., ZZW