“This is development aggression at its worst.”
Recently, the media has reported about how Chinese loans that will finance the Kaliwa Dam and Chico River Projects are controversial. The focus has been on Chinese involvement, including that of Chinese workers being deployed to build these big projects. But as my colleague Joy Reyes (who just passed the bar exams) and I have written in an article published by Rappler, these projects should not only be seen through the prism of whether the Chinese loans are onerous or not, but more from a perspective of these projects being development aggression at its worst. Indeed, the Kaliwa and Chico river projects are bad from an environmental and social justice point of view, likely resulting in an intensified insurgency in the Sierra Madre and Cordillera. Because of this, they are likely also not to be built and the probability is that future administrations will have to cancel these loans. These in turn will result in defaulting on the loans and in arbitration proceedings that have been designed to favor China.