By Celeste Anna R. Formoso
PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, (PNA) -– Several days after the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) drew flak for unanimously endorsing the controversial 15-megawatt circulating fluidized bed coal-fired power plant being proposed by the DMCI Power Corporation (DPC), Palawan Vice Governor Dennis Socrates makes an explanation on what led to the approval.
In a statement sent to the media, he explained that the vote leading to the passage of the measure was “a political decision” with the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan deciding to favor development.
“The question of endorsing the proposed coal-fired power plant in Aborlan is not complicated. It does not, in itself, present any ethical dilemma. This will not involve any violation of the moral law,” Socrates said.
He furthered that there is also no “any real concern on the impact of the proposed project to the health and safety of the residents of the locality, or the environment, which are matters addressed to the further technical evaluation of personnel of the various government regulatory agencies involved, including the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD).”
“Indeed, around 60 percent of the power supply in Luzon comes from coal-fired power plants, which are allowed precisely because they pass the standards set by our national scientific-technical regulatory agencies,” the vice governor said.
Socrates said the only issue to resolve for the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan is whether or not Palaweños want development.
The proposed project, he added, “acts in response to the pressing need for electrical power supply in Palawan not only to meet the existing demand, but even more important, to electrify—to connect to the global economy—the thousands of households in mainland Palawan alone that are still in the Dark Ages, and to allow as well investments to come in.”
“But like all political decisions, our choice will not be pleasing to everyone. There is opposition based on the ideology of conservation; and there is opposition based on a sentimental attachment to the status quo, to keep things as they are, and to maintain the rural or even deep-forest ambience of the town. We respect their positions,” Socrates stated.
In defending the leadership of Palawan Governor Jose Alvarez, the province’s vice governor said the overwhelming mandate from the electorate-manifested in an avalanche of votes giving him an unprecedented majority in the May 2013 elections—has been precisely for change—Pagbabago—which seeks to raise the 80 percentof Palaweños who are at present living below the poverty line to at least the level of the middle class; and, hopefully, to fly Palawan from third world to first in nine years.
This will not happen, he explained further, without rapidly increasing the supply of electricity by at least three times within such period, to power the industrial estates, five-star resorts and hotels, massive housing, transportation, and port requirements, hospital and other service facilities, and yes, call centers, as well as others we may not yet be capable of visualizing.
“While there are other possible sources of energy, there is no other serious proponent in view apart from the coal-fired power plant seeking our endorsement to take the further steps towards its eventual operation. Nor do we see any cogent reason to deny the endorsement sought,” he said.
Furthermore, he said the governor has obtained an undertaking from the proponent, incorporated as a condition attached to their endorsement, to shift from coal to bio-mass fuel, and to design its equipment to allow such shift, in the event that the latter should become less expensive than the former—which is most likely to happen—and which will provide livelihood for thousands of families in Aborlan who could be growers of the bamboo that can be used as substitute for coal.
“In our system of democracy, the elected representatives are the voice of the people. The proposed project has been endorsed by the Sangguniang Barangay of Barangay San Juan, Aborlan, and by the Sangguniang Bayan of Aborlan, having jurisdiction over the territory in which the proposed project will be undertaken and operated,” he said.
The least that the Sangguniang Panlalawigan can do to respond to the crisis, he explained more, is not to become an obstacle to the hopes of the people to be finally and fully connected to the global network of production and exchange of goods and services; to become participants, no longer excluded, no longer marginalized; in short, to be liberated from poverty.