SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Top officials of the
Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) have asked President Benigno Aquino to
relocate the 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant project of an energy consortium
out of Subic due to the potential danger it poses on the freeport and mounting
opposition from stakeholders of the economic zone.
“This is the official position of the
board [that was arrived at on May 4], which I have communicated to the
President, and [RP Energy Inc., a consortium of energy companies Aboitiz Power,
Manila Electric Co. and Taiwan Cogen Corp.],” said SBMA Chair Roberto Garcia on
Wednesday.
Malacañang has yet to respond to the SBMA
position.
“There is no indication [from President
Aquino that he has decided on the proposed Subic plant’s fate]. But in a recent
meeting with [Energy] Secretary Jose Rene Almendras], I told him [about
SBMA’s position],” Garcia said.
In a 2011 energy forum in Baguio City,
Almendras described the Subic project as a new facility that would sustain
Luzon’s power supply in the near future.
In an interview, Garcia said: “In summary,
because of the widespread opposition to the coal plant, we have requested the
President to relocate [the facility] somewhere else … because, for obvious
reasons, major tourism projects will be downgraded. [The value and
attractiveness] of Subic will be downgraded. [Besides,] there are many other
places [that RP Energy] can locate the coal plant, so why here?”
Garcia said the abandoned Bataan nuclear
power plant is a good alternative site for the RP Energy coal-fired plant. “[The
government] has infrastructure there. Four hundred hectares [are] developed,
[so] all they have to do is build the jetty,” he said.
In his May 2 letter to RP Energy chair
Oscar Reyes, Garcia said “locating the coal plant in [Subic’s] unique forest
and marine environment … would adversely compromise the freeport’s significant
tourism potential.”
“There are many other places to locate
this coal plant. There is only one Subic Bay,” he said.
In a report that SBMA submitted to
Malacañang, the agency said the project was rejected by freeport stakeholders in
a 2011 social acceptability process.
About 155 representatives of the area’s
local governments, the zone’s business and tourism locators, freeport residents,
landowners, including the Aeta indigenous communities, and freeport workers took
part in the consultation process from Dec. 7 to 9.
RP Energy, however, did not join the
consultations.
In a statement he made earlier, Raymond
Cunningham, first vice president for business development of Aboitiz Power and
member of RP Energy’s steering committee, said: “If we are convinced that the
overwhelming majority of people in this area do not want the project, we would
go away.”
Garcia acknowledged the need to improve
power supply. But he said, “We don’t need [to build the coal plant] here in
Subic. If that happens, then we might need to rethink major tourism projects for
the freeport.”
He said SBMA has reservations about
allowing RP Energy to proceed with the coal plant project because of “the highly
disadvantageous contract that they have [with the SBMA].”
“Anybody that I talked to, when I tell
them RP Energy will only be paying P1 million to SBMA every year, [they react by
saying] ‘That’s outrageous,’” Garcia said.
“RP Energy cannot hold me to that
contract. I will not allow it,” he added.
Should Malacañang decide to keep the RP
Energy project in Subic, however, Garcia said SBMA was “willing to defer to the
Office of the President with four or five conditions.”
These conditions were outlined in a June 7
letter to the newly formed Subic Bay Chamber for Health and Environment, he
said.
He said RP Energy and the government
should adhere to clean air standards to be set by SBMA based on World Health
Organization requirements and that they should acquire the certification of an
independent engineer stipulating the viability of ash ponds that could withstand
climate change and geological calamities.
The coal-fired project must execute a
power purchase agreement, compensate for the public health costs of communities
near the plant, and integrate a working greenhouse gas emission reduction
program, he said.
On June 5, members of the Zambales
Electric Cooperative petitioned the Iba Regional Trial Court to restrain SBMA
from issuing permits to RP Energy, arguing that the consortium had abandoned its
plan to provide the province with cheap electricity. Robert Gonzaga,
Inquirer Central Luzon
