Recently, a position paper signed by residents of the town of Lupi in Camarines Sur has expressed vehement opposition to the controversial Libmanan-Cabusao Dam Project (LCDP), a purported promise of Mrs. Gloria Arroyo and her son, Congressman Dato Arroyo to the farmers of the First District of Camarines Sur.
The position paper against LCDP claimed that no legitimate consultation with the affected communities and families-particularly with those from the town of Lupi- was undertaken as evinced by the resistance emanating from the inhabitants of the said town. It also belied the claim that only 300 families were to be affected by the huge dam project, and challenged the issued Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) granted it by the DENR.
While there were other reasons behind the rejection of the project by the people of Lupi, the claim that there was a lack of consultation with the affected families and communities is a perennial feature of huge government infrastructure projects such as the LCDP. As it is, families whose lands would be submerged by the constructed dam, are never really allowed to express their opposition to multi-million projects whose "patrons" are quite often individual ensconced in power.
So-called consultations with communities and families are perfunctory and inconsequential: one need only ask the families and indigenous communities displaced by the San Roque Multi-Purpose Project in Pangasinan how their voices of protest went unheeded.
Hence, it is disturbing to learn that indeed, the inter-agency committee formed by the Bicol River Basin Watershed Management (BRBWMP) had decided to approve the project without initially consulting the affected families. They were only "informed" but never really solicited for their consent. The affected families and residents of Lupi are therefore no rabble-rousers: they are the ones whose lives would be inundated and damned by the so-called "Dato's dam."
Authentic development demands that peoples affected by development projects are to be treated as partners and not simply as beneficiaries. As such, their informed consent is crucial. For regardless of the benefits that may be provided by projects such as dams, when the people themselves have been kept in the dark or worse, misinformed about them, then that development is bogus.