Out of the sewers

INSTANCE AND consequence make two news stories that appeared in most of the local papers Tuesday.

Headlined AC court issues injunction vs. waste recovery project, the first reported on Regional Trial Court 57 Executive Judge Omar Viola issuing a preliminary injunction against that sewerage treatment project at the Clark sub-zone, in favour of petitioner Clark Development Corp.

The CDC, to recall, found itself totally clueless over diggings right at the very channel of the Sacobia River, under that bridge once dubbed as “leading to nowhere.”

Invoking RA 7227 and other laws appurtenant thereto, the CDC immediately clamped down on the construction with a cease and desist order. But the project proponents “continued with the digging or earth-moving activities and that Illuminado S. Sicat, from whom the Soliman acquired the property through waiver of rights, is a non-Aeta and not among the CADT (certificate of ancestral domain-title) holder and thus no right to transfer.”

Constraining the CDC to seek legal remedies which the same EJ Viola granted via a temporary restraining order that, after its lapse, was followed by the preliminary injunction.

In the injunction, respondents Lydia C. Soliman, Tesuphils Inc., and Rainbow Holdings Inc. – signatories to a memorandum of agreement forming the joint venture to pursue the project – “are hereby restrained and enjoined from implementing the June 16, 2015 Memorandum of Agreement, including the Joint Venture as well as other activities related thereto or in connection with the construction, establishment and operation of the Waste Recovery Facility in Barangay Calumpang, Mabalacat City, CSEZ.”

Further, the respondents were directed to “to remove and withdraw the heavy equipment from the subject area…”

End of the first story, in brief.

Aetas to file raps vs CDC execs. So screamed the second story.

The CDC was accused of “disregarding the Ancestral Domain Law” by “leaders of different Aeta tribal communities in Mabalacat City in Pampanga and Bamban town in Tarlac.”

The story made no bones that the planned legal action against CDC came subsequent, consequent as well, to EJ Viola’s injunction order versus Soliman, et al. The ramifications though go beyond the sewerage treatment facility.

“(President-CEO Arthur) Tugade, representing CDC, continuously ignores the law by claiming our ancestral lands as part of the Freeport area.” So charged one Juvylyn (Ruvielane?) Margarito, identified in the story as “spokesperson of the Aeta communities.”

And more: “Binantaan kami na kakasuhan, hina-harass kami sa aming lupa. Inaalisan na nila kami ng karapatan sa aming lupa, kasi hindi kami puwede magdesisyon sa sariling lupa namin (We were threatened with court cases, harassed in our own land, We are being deprived of our rights to our land as we are not allowed to decide what to do with it).”

CDC “control” of the Aetas’ ancestral domain is embodied in the Joint Management Agreement (JMA) signed by the CDC, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and leaders of the Aeta community in December 2007.

Under the JMA, all agreements and undertakings within the Aetas ICC’s Ancestral Domain must pass through and be duly approved by CDC and the Joint Management Committee (JDC) created, according to CDC Legal Officer Pearl Sagmit.

This was contradicted by Margarito claiming that the JMA was not implemented due to the absence of implementing rules and regulations and the Joint Development Council.

“A bitter pill to swallow,” Margarito called the JMA, which, since its early days, had already attracted controversy and criticism.

Then 1^st District Rep. Carmelo F. Lazatin accused the CDC of having duped the Aetas into signing the JMA which was followed by the distribution of about 10 Mitsubishi L300 FB vans to tribal leaders. Which became the objects of envy to the tribesmen, especially after they served as conveyances to nightly carousing at the videoke bars under the acacia trees of Mabiga.

Not of Mabiga now but of the JMA, Lazatin said: “The sharing of 80 percent to the CDC and 20 percent to the Aetas on the lease of some 10,000 hectares as mandated by the JMA is most unfair, if not iniquitous. It should be the other way around, the Aetas being the owner of the land and the CDC merely a broker.”

What was sad, Lazatin said then, was that the Aetas had not even been given their share from the payment of the already leased areas.

The solon then said he would file a House resolution investigating the JMA. Sadly, local media lost trail of the JMA from there, until its sudden resurfacing in – of all places – the sewerage treatment facility.

Maybe time to retake the scent from here. What with that stinky smell.