By Ayen Infante
01/25/2010 [ tribune.net.ph ]
A dispute over financial compensation for the Aetas is threatening to further delay a P1-billion expansion plan of Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc. (PMPMI) in the Subic Freeport Zone even as it groundbreaks the project today.
A top official of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) privy to the negotiations between the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) and PMPMI over the ancestral domain claims of the Aetas on the land to be used for the expansion project said PMPMI officials have been told the firm could not start with the construction phase of the project unless the issues on ancestral claims are settled.
The dispute involves the portion of the PMPMI lease that would go to the Aetas. The Aetas are demanding 20 percent of the lease similar to the level tribal communities
receive from the Clark Freeport Zone while SBMA is insisting on only a 10 percent portion of the annual lease from the 50-year lease contract.
PMPMI officials citing the long delay that the project had encountered insisted, however, on holding the groundbreaking of the project.
NCIP is the agency acting in behalf of the Aeta people who holds the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) on portions of the land on which the PMPMI project would rise.
The CADT gives indigenous people ownership of land, the authority to get a share in its development, and gives them the right to demand prior consent before approval of projects.
The NCIP, however, had insisted that SBMA pay the Aetas 20 percent of lease proceeds since the amount was already reduced from an original demand of a 30 percent share.
Unless the dispute between SBMA and the Aetas is settled, PMPMI will likely be forced to place on hold further activities on the expansion project in Subic.
A pending tripartite deal among SBMA, NCIP and the Aetas of Pastotan, the biggest community of indigenous people in Olongapo holding the CADT, still needed to be signed among others.
Under the ancestral domain title, the total land area covered for the Aetas was about 4,284 hectares.
While the project of Philip Morris would increase its land area from 9,600 square meters to 49,279 square meters.
_____________________________________________________________
