First of 2 parts
Rain showers greeted Renato Ibañez and other Indigenous leaders when they gathered in Manila in mid-September to halt the controversial Kaliwa Dam in dense forests east of Manila.
Ibañez lives in Daraitan, a village in Tanay town, Rizal province, that easily gets flooded during fierce storms, and is at risk of being submerged by the dam project being built on the boundary of Rizal and neighboring Quezon province in the Sierra Madre mountain range.
In September, he and 10 other Indigenous leaders had a roundtable meeting with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Metropolitan Waterworks Sewerage System (MWSS), the project proponent – and confirmed first-hand their worst fear.
Once Kaliwa Dam is completed, the MWSS said at least half of the households in Daraitan will be submerged along with forests, riparian species, and sites sacred to the Dumagat-Remontados tribe on the fringes of the dam reservoir.
“I asked them [MWSS] if the barangay hall will be submerged; they said ‘no’ because it’s located 70 meters which will not be reached by the waters, but everything lower than that will be submerged,” Ibañez told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
“We’re not just talking about flooding wherein waters will subside after weeks, no—the majority of our community will disappear,” he said.
The MWSS said Kaliwa Dam will supply an additional 600 million liters of water per day to Metro Manila and avert a possible water crisis in the metropolis of at least 13 million in 2027 amid dwindling water sources.
This water security, however, comes at a cost: the possible flooding of 9,700 hectares of forests and displacement of 1,485 families in Tanay, Rizal, and General Nakar and Infanta, Quezon, according to the Save Sierra Madre Network.
This comes on top of concerns about the terms of the government’s $211.12-million ($283.2 million in earlier reports) loan deal forged with the Export-Import Bank of China in 2018 for the project, adding to the country’s burgeoning foreign debt.
The proposal to build the dam goes back to the 1970s, during the term of strongman Ferdinand Marcos, the late father of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Since then, the project has been reviewed and shelved due to various reasons, including fierce opposition from the Indigenous peoples, civil society, and the Church; its high cost of construction; MWSS privatization; and fears that it would lead to a spike in water rates.
It got a fresh shot in the arm in December 2019 when then President Rodrigo Duterte greenlit its construction, calling it the “last resort” for the capital’s dwindling water supply. He then secured a loan deal from China for the “flagship project.”
Construction work began in 2021. China’s state-owned China Energy Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CEEC) partnered with local companies – Engineering and Development Corporation of the Philippines (EDCOP), Primex Corporation, and SMEC Holdings Limited – to build a concrete gravity dam, reservoir, and 27.7-kilometer underground conveyance tunnel.
President Marcos Jr. inherited the project from Duterte and included it in his P9-trillion ($153.24 billion) “Build-Better-More” flagship infrastructure project.
The project hit a 24% completion rate in October this year amid continuing opposition, rising construction costs, and growing apprehension among local government officials due to the upcoming local elections.
The flooding of Ibañez’s Daraitan was not in the initial scenario—until recent assessments showed otherwise.
Engineer Ryan Ayson, project manager of MWSS’s New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project, confirmed this in a separate interview. “We identified these risks to the area… and almost half of Daraitan village needs to move to higher ground,” he said.
Limited disclosures, transparency
On a map, Daraitan sits by the riverbend, close to the meandering Tinipak River, which on good days brings small boats carrying food and other fare. Rains are frequent on that side of the Sierra Madre mountain range and when downpours come, the village gets flooded.
Since Daraitan has no early warning system, an evacuation center and an established disaster risk reduction management system, Ibañez and other residents had to rely on indigenous signs taught by ancestors and community spirit to deal with perennial flooding.
When river crabs and “black cockroaches” emerge from the river, it’s a signal for everyone to move to higher ground, Ibañez said. “It means the flood will come,” he said.
They do preemptive evacuation and locals living in the higher areas would house evacuees fleeing flooding from the swollen river until the water subsides, Ibañez said.
While securing approval from Indigenous peoples as early as 2019, MWSS disclosed that Daraitan will not go underwater as it is located on the fringes of the reservoir. The Kaliwa Dam’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a document that assesses the environmental and social impacts of large-scale Philippine projects, also gave no indication of flooding or inundation in the village.
The EIS projected river water levels at Daraitan village at 177 meters, higher than 168.8 meters, the maximum stimulated reservoir water surface elevation in a 1:1000 year-flood rainfall scenario.
This scenario includes an 8% additional rainfall due to climate change and “since the houses in Daraitan village are situated above 177 meters, they will not be flooded when the Kaliwa Dam has been constructed,” according to the EIS.
But recent findings by MWSS showed the project would impact on some 2,492 households of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents in Daraitan.
While the MWSS claimed that only half of the village will be affected, Indigenous groups and villagers said the waters would submerge up to 90% of the village as only houses situated 70 meters and above will be spared.
“My house is 53 meters high—it will be included in the inundation,” Clara Dullas, president of Samahan ng Kababaihang Dumagat ng Sierra Madre and a resident of Daraitan, shared during the roundtable meeting with DENR and MWSS officials in September.
“The barangay hall will not be submerged—and all the houses higher than that,” Ibañez said. “But the barangay hall is high… They will flood the majority of the community. Maybe only 100 houses will be left, maybe even only 10%. Their [MWSS] data is incorrect.”
Villagers wondered if the increase in the dam’s height from 63 meters to 73 meters contributed to the new flooding scenario. But the MWSS said this was done to incorporate a bridge at the top of the dam.
“Maybe they’re increasing the height because they will store more water… maybe they won’t be able to meet the demands, so they need to do this. But if you add another 10 meters, more water volume, the flooding could swallow the whole Daraitan,” said Indigenous leader and anti-dam campaigner Ramcy Astoveza of the Alyansa ng mga Mamamayan Laban sa Mapaniil na Dam or ALMA! Dam, a local coalition.
MWSS’ Ayson assured the villagers the water volume would not increase. He added that they’re building the bridge for villagers who can’t cross the river once the water level goes up.
“Based on consultation with [local government units] and the locals, they want access to the area even with a dam,” Ayson told PCIJ.
“As waters will be higher than before, it will be difficult to cross the river. Our contractor considered this during the design phase, and they conducted value engineering analysis to include a bridge at the top,” he explained.
The DENR proposed a household mapping survey to determine the number of impacted houses as MWSS figures are inconsistent with claims of Indigenous groups. Meanwhile, Ayson said they are discussing solutions with the local government unit to address flooding in Daraitan.
“During discussions with the local government… they are requesting… they want to relocate the residents in Daraitan,” Ayson said. “The other option is to build a dike—but we don’t want that. With a dike, the village will be trapped, and it will be arduous to send aid,” he explained.
Unclear environmental, social impacts
Apart from the threat of flooding, villagers have also rued MWSS’s failure to disclose the extent of forest cover loss and its impact on biodiversity in the Kaliwa Watershed.
They have also bewailed the proponent’s non-disclosure of the construction of barracks for security forces, housing for construction personnel and a three-kilometer access road to the dam site that have damaged portions of the watershed.
Marcelino Tena and his Indigenous people’s organization from General Nakar were mobilized to plant trees and re-green a portion of the watershed under the National Greening Program in 2011. Eight years later, the same spot was cleared to make a path for the dam.
“I planted the seedlings there myself,” Tena told PCIJ. “But look at the irony—the same area has been bulldozed to become an access road.”
The STOP Kaliwa Dam Network estimated that construction work would result in 291 hectares of forest cover loss and the destruction of biodiversity and habitat of 126 species within 300 hectares of the watershed.
Contractors planned to rehabilitate the 100-hectare area cleared for temporary facilities, according to MWSS, which also vowed to reforest the Kaliwa Watershed under its Annual Million Tree Challenge.
In 2020, the Commission on Audit flagged MWSS for failing to show proof of compliance with the DENR’s requirements when it issued the environmental compliance certificate (ECC), including an approved reforestation plan, integrated watershed management plan, and assessment of threatened species that will be impacted during construction, to the contractors.
According to various DENR documents, the Kaliwa Watershed is threatened by shifting cultivation and charcoal production. The development site lost around 444 hectares of forest cover from 2019 to 2023, according to data from Global Forest Watch, an online platform that provides tools to monitor global forests.
This would mean the site lost at least 100 hectares a year. However, according to Dr. Aldrin Mallari of the Center for Conservation Innovations, this is not significant compared to losses in other protected areas in the Philippines.
“But a loss is a loss… Once forests are gone, it’s gone,” he said. Mallari explained that a thorough assessment of the biodiversity there would have provided a clear picture of the relationship between species, their habitats, and the ecosystem to identify critical areas that could be impacted by the dam project.
Indigenous groups have also lamented that their right to roam the Sierra Madre has been constrained by checkpoints and dam site closure enforced by Philippine security forces since 2020. Indigenous groups in General Nakar’s downstream areas have had no access to the dam site since then.
“We are not anti-development, but the Sierra Madre is ours and the way our consent was acquired is wrong,” Indigenous leader Conchita Calzado of General Nakar said, citing their group’s recognized ancestral domain claims there.
“Now, we can no longer roam around that mountain. We can’t practice the sustainable honey-harvesting method we learned from other Indigenous peoples in Palawan. We can’t help in harvesting upland rice… and we can’t even barter rice and honey with fruits we grow back home,” she said.
Environmental accounting
The emergence of impacts across the project area, including disruptions to the Dumagat-Remontados’ nomadic way of life, could be attributed to the lack of in-depth and extensive assessment in the Kaliwa watershed, Mallari said.
“If you look at the EIS and the recommendations… it’s focused on administrative requirements — that Kaliwa dam should adhere to regulations in managing protected areas, securing the FPIC (free and prior informed consent) and other documents… but there is no honest-to-goodness understanding of the impacts,” Mallari explained.
In June, Marcos signed the Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounting System (PENCAS) Act, a landmark legislation that integrates ecosystems and natural capital into economic and policy frameworks.
“The central principle is that nature has the right to exist. And this is the cost of nature. This is the wealth nature contributes to our national wealth. If we lose this… if we lose a forest, this is how much of your national capital you’re losing,” Mallari said.
The law is crucial due to the large number of big-ticket infrastructure projects under Marcos and could usher in a better tool to assess environmental and social impacts, Mallari said.
While the implementing rules and regulations of the PENCAS law have yet to be ironed out, Mallari, several scientists and resource management experts launched in May a metric called Sukat ng Kalikasan, an extensive assessment tool to supplement the implementation of PENCAS.
“When you measure nature, it’s not only based on the number of species. You also look at the habitat or the ecosystem which will be impacted and the ecosystem services these areas provide,” Mallari said.
This is the same for Indigenous groups and locals impacted by infrastructure projects, he said. The comprehensive metric will not only provide costs for houses or farms, it will also incorporate the Indigenous way of life in the compensation or in project planning.
Further, an “honest-to-goodness assessment” will enable managers to avoid unpredictable impacts during project implementation, Mallari said.
Meanwhile, anti-dam groups clamored for the issuance of a cease-and-desist order against the dam with a view to shelving it, claiming the MWSS only paid penalties for previous violation notices, a slap on the wrist compared to the gravity of the offense.
Ibañez and the group left the roundtable meeting in September disappointed. The DENR did not issue an order to stop the project. They said they would continue the clamor and knock on mayor’s offices until the matter reached Malacañang to permanently stop Kaliwa Dam.
“Once the dam is completed, our tribe will scatter, our tradition will disappear,” Ibañez said. “We will only become remnants of the past—I hope the government sees that.” – PCIJ.org
Next: What if Kaliwa Dam gets stalled?
This editorial project was supervised by PCIJ Resident Editor TJ Burgonio. It was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network as part of the Media Action on Sustainable Infrastructure in the Philippines.
Data used in this report were compiled from the Official Development Assistance Review Report 2023 of the National Economic and Development Authority, the Consolidated Audit Report on the ODA-Funded Programs and Projects from 2019 to 2022 by the Commission on Audit, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the Environmental Compliance Certificate from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Datasets were cross-checked with documents, press releases and published information sourced from various government offices.
Figures on forest loss extracted from Global Forest Watch datasets were obtained after overlaying the development site identified in the EIS on the website. These figures, however, only include forest loss in the dam site and reservoir areas. It does not include areas covered by the underground conveyance tunnel.The excel file of datasets are available here.
Interviews with Indigenous leaders and company officials were conducted in Tagalog but translated into English for brevity.