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Delay in Magat dam wealth share release to put Ifugao in darkness

Gov. Teddy Baguilat said Sunday this is because the province has not yet received its share of the national wealth tax from the operation of the Magat Dam, which is located along the Isabela-Ifugao border, where some of the local government units here derived their payment for their power consumptions.

"It is ironic that (Ifugao hosts) one of the biggest hydroelectric plants in the region, yet we don’t get electricity from Magat. We have to tap (our electricity) from Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya which makes (the cost of) our electricity higher, yet the water comes from us," he said.

He said that the electric cooperative here has already pending notice of disconnections to five towns here – Alfonso Lista, Mayaoyao, Aguinaldo, Lamut and Lagawe and some adjacent villages - which play host to the Magat Dam or part of the dam’s impact zone.

Besides generating at least 350MW of power for the Luzon grid, the more than 25-year old Magat Hydroelectric and Irrigation Project, located along the boundary of Alfonso Lista, Ifugao and Ramon, Isabela, also supplies irrigation waters to at least 80,000 hectares of farmlands in Isabela and parts of Quirino.

The bulk of the water that generates power to the Magat Dam comes from watersheds and bodies of water from this central Cordillera province and Nueva Vizcaya.

Baguilat said they have been contacting Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes and other Energy officials for their intercession in releasing their national wealth tax share, "but to no avail."

This province is one of the three provinces supposed to receive a share from the national wealth tax derived from the dam’s operation, whose power component is now being managed by a private consortium, SN Aboitiz. The two other provinces are Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela, which plays co-host to the dam with Ifugao.

At present, the status of the dam, which had been sucked into a boundary dispute between Ifugao and Isabela as to where it is actually located, has been considered at status quo. Thus both are supposed to receive 50 percent of the income from the dam until the dispute has been resolved.

Two years ago, the provincial government then under Gov. Glenn Prudenciano conducted traditional ceremonies within the dam’s periphery to invoke local gods for intercession in their claim of the wealth tax as well as to bring it to national attention. TMB

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