BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya—Due to unpaid Real Property Taxes, the local government of Alfonso Castaneda town has refused to renew the business permit of the Casecnan Water and Energy Co. Inc., operator of the Casecnan Multi-Purpose Irrigation and Power Project.
“They cannot operate the CMIPP because they no longer have their legal business permit. We will soon enforce its closure. This is what we are doing now,” said Alfonso Castañeda Mayor Jerry Pasigian.
CWECI owns and operates the CMIPP, a 150-megawatt hydro power generation facility composed of two impounding dams and a power plant connected by a pair of 26-kilometer diversion tunnels.
He said withholding the business permit “is part of the [town’s] administrative remedies to encourage the payment of the firm’s RPT arrears.”
“Failure to do the RPT settlement will result to the issuance of a closure order and if still, the firm refuses to pay its RPT obligation, we will be forced to conduct a public auction of its properties and facilities,” Pasigian said.
He also said they are consulting with leaders of the indigenous Bugkalot tribe and barangay officials of Pelaway, Lublub, Lipuga, Abuyo, Cauayan and Galintuja on their plan to protest the company owing to its unpaid RPT arrears.
Once the town issues a closure order against CWECI, the release of irrigation waters through the CMIPP will be stopped, putting vast farmlands in Central Luzon in danger of losing their crops.
“Agricultural productivity will be drastically affected because definitely, we will not allow the CMIPP’s operation unless the company will settle their RPT arrears,” Pasigian said.
In 2014, CWECI, a subsidiary of the Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company, refused to pay its RPT delinquency of more than P1.7 billion to the provincial government.
Pasigian said CWECI’s RPT payment was stalled due to the company’s compliance with Executive Order 173 issued by then-President Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
EO 173 requires the reduction and condonation of RPTs and interest/penalties assessed on power generation facilities of independent power producers under Build Operate Transfer contracts with government-owned and controlled corporations.
The CMIPP was constructed during the Ramos administration, and diverts irrigation waters from Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino provinces for the irrigation of farmlands and to augment the power requirements of Central Luzon.
The project siphons water from the Taan and Casecnan rivers in Alfonso Castañeda through its diversion tunnels to the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija, irrigating at least 200,000 hectares of farmland in Central Luzon and the western part of Pangasinan.
