Laiban dam talks terminated

Government announced Wednesday that talks with San Miguel Corporation regarding the controversial P52-billion ($1.13 billion) Laiban dam project were called off, gmanews.tv reports.

"The negotiations for the joint venture proposal of San Miguel have bogged down and we have terminated the negotiations," said Diosdado M. Allado, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) administrator, in a briefing.

Allado declined to explain why the talks bogged down beyond a vague “legal and technical issues”, but did say issues were raised regarding the relocation of people at the proposed project site, reports Malaya.

Allado said the termination of the talks should end all “speculations and malicious rumors that the Laiban Dam is a done deal and everything is under wraps.”

Controversy sparked last year due to the perceived secrecy and rushed proceedings of the Laiban deal which seemed to favor San Miguel Corporation (SMC).

The “take or pay” mechanism in SMC’s project proposal could jack up water prices, leaving consumers to pay for the entire 1,900 million liters per day regardless whether they consumed the amount or not.

The project drew flak from the public, the church, advocacy group Freedom from Debt Coalition, and the indigenous peoples residing on the proposed project site.

The project was supposed to be SMC’s expansion into the utilities sector under subsidiary San Miguel Bulk Water Co. Inc.

MWSS is eyeing other alternatives to meet the metro’s water demands, including a project that would draw water from Laguna de Bay and a Sierra Madre bulk water proposal, and will discuss possible courses of action in a board meeting this week, said Allado.

If other talks do not prosper, the MWSS might be forced to put up the dam itself, he said.

The MWSS estimates that growing population in the metro will lead to a water shortage of 1,600 million liters per day by 2015.

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