Army urged to take over North Cotabato dam project

CARMEN, North Cotabato — Local officials want Army engineers to immediately take over from private contractors, including a Chinese company, the construction of all major components of the Japanese-funded Malitubog-Maridagao (Mal-Mar) irrigation project here.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol said he is certain that the presence of Army engineering battalions here and in areas which the dam’s dikes criss-cross will curtail the activities of local kidnapping and extortion gangs.

Beleaguered workers of the China Import and Export Technologies Inc. (Citech), daunted by the deaths of their two companions, Zhang Zhung Quiang and Xue Xing, in the hands of their captors, started pulling out yesterday from Barangay Kibines here, where the P3.4-billion Mal-Mar dam is being built.

Zhang Zhung Quiang’s brother, Zhang Zhung Yi, and a Filipino-Chinese trader named Edwin Lim, are still in the hands of the kidnappers.

The slain Citech workers were shot dead by their captors as soldiers closed in on their lair in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat last Sunday.

The soldiers, however, rescued one of the captives, Wang Sheng-li, during a three-hour running gunbattle with the kidnappers who fled after five of them were killed in the exchange of gunfire.

"With the Army engineers constructing the major components of the project, we might be able to complete the project by September, as set by President Arroyo" Piñol said.

Piñol said the provincial government has sent President Arroyo a resolution urging the deployment of a brigade of Army engineers to finish the irrigation project.

When finished, the Mal-Mar dam can irrigate 11,000 hectares of ricefields in North Cotabato and the towns of Pagalungan and Pagagawan, both in Maguindanao.

The Mal-Mar project was started in 1992, but security problems have repeatedly stalled its construction.