MANILA, Philippines - Fisherfolk group Pamalakaya on Monday urged a Denmark construction firm to stop pursuing the reclamation project in Cavite City for the construction of an international seaport and airport in Southern Luzon.
Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France said Rambol Group/AS should back off from the project in Sangley Point in Cavite City that would be detrimental to thousands of fishermen and urban poor residents in the area.
France made the appeal to Frantz Knudsen, project director of Rambol Group based in the Danish capital.
Knudsen and his team of European airport construction experts will arrive in November to work on the feasibility study of the country’s newest international airport and seaport that the local consortium All-Asia Resources and Reclamation Corp. plans to build.
The Rambol Group announced that consultative meetings were held with officials of several government agencies, including the Philippine Reclamation Authority, Department of Transportation and Communications, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Tourism, National Economic and Development Authority, Manila International Airport Authority, Philippine Ports Authority, and the Philippine Navy and Philippine Air Force.
The Rambol Group said conceptual plans that it had submitted in their Letters of Intent to DOTC and to the PRA in January have been refined, based on the recently concluded data-gathering activities and meetings with stakeholders.
The Rambol Group confirmed claims made by William Tieng, chair of the Solar Group, the lead local partner of ARRC, that the consortium’s foreign partners were bullish about the Philippines and its development prospects, particularly the development of the country’s newest international gateway.
"The reclamation plan will kill the livelihood of tens of thousands of fishermen and other people dependent on Cavite's fishing for their day-to-day survival," France said.
France also called on Malacañang to cancel the project and order the Rambol Group to abort the feasibility study.
He said that Malacañang should shelve the project and instead think of better ways on how to resolve hunger and poverty plaguing all coastal areas and fishing villages of the province.
France said that 26,000 fishing families from Bacoor to Cavite City will be displaced from their main source of livelihood once Malacañang agrees with foreign investors and financiers of the Sangley Point Reclamation Project in the Cavite Peninsula.