"China-funded water project meets stiff opposition in the Philippines", 4 March 2021

In May 2020, construction restarted on one of the most controversial and culturally sensitive megaprojects of President Rodrigo Duterte’s infrastructure drive in the Philippines. Critics say the government’s contract with Chinese firms is unconstitutional and illegal.

According to the government’s National Irrigation Administration, the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project will increase national rice production by around 36,000 metric tonnes of milled rice annually, and save about US$15 million on rice imports. [...]

Opposing it is a loose alliance of indigenous people’s groups, environmentalists and some national politicians. They have warned of the project’s impact on forests and rivers in the mountainous Cordillera region of Luzon – the largest of the Philippine islands. They have also questioned the legality of the funding agreement with China Exim development bank.

It is forecast to cost 4.37 billion pesos (US$90 million), financed in part by a 3.6 billion peso (US$62 million) loan from China Exim.

In 2019, the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), a federation of grassroots organisations representing the region’s indigenous communities, denounced the irrigation project for violating the Philippine Constitution and the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination.

The CPA says the project occupies ancestral lands, that it was greenlighted without free, prior and informed consent from the indigenous peoples of Kalinga and Cordillera, and that the government did not carry out any community consultation before signing the loan agreement with China Exim. [...]

Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer and former congressman, has petitioned the Philippines’ Supreme Court to declare the loan from China Exim unconstitutional and void. He has asked the court to order the suspension of the project. [...]