A total of 150 residents of Casiguran, Aurora, and their supporters trooped to Baguio City Wednesday to ask the Supreme Court, which holds its summer sessions there, to resolve petitions questioning the constitutionality of the Aurora Pacific Ecozone. In a statement sent to media Wednesday, Task Force Anti-APECO reiterated their call for the SC to trash the law creating the country's newest ecozone as this "endangers" the lives of residents. “The lives of thousands of Casiguran’s poor are still in danger because of the ecozone,” said Father Joefran Talaban, spokesperson of Task Force Anti-APECO, during a press conference with affected townsfolk at the Baguio Cathedral. “Rather than allowing the Angara family’s APECO project to continue bulldozing over the rights of Casiguran’s towns folk, we urge the Supreme Court to hold it accountable for all its offenses by declaring the APECO Law unconstitutional,” he added. Senator Edgardo Angara co-sponsored Republic Act No. 10083, the law that created APECO, with son Aurora Rep. Sonny Angara, who is gunning for a senate seat in the coming May polls. APECO is the mega-project created under RA 10083, purportedly to bring "progress" to the municipality of Casiguran. Residents have since been opposing the law for "infringing on" provisions of other legislation, such as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the Indigenous People's Rights Act, the Local Government Code, the Fisheries Code, and the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, the task force's statement said. Filed by the Public Interest Law Center and more than 200 individual petitioners in October 2011, the pending case against APECO opposes the laws establishing it for violating the 1987 Constitution on at least thirteen grounds, including:
- grave disregard of the rights of Casiguran’s farmers, fisher folk and indigenous peoples
- deprivation of property without the due process of law
- denial of the equal protection of the laws for the affected people
- absence of consultations with the stakeholders
- abolition of local government units without the proper procedure outlined in the LGC
- power of APECO to incur debts without the concurrence of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
- delegation of public utilities to foreigners
- non-Distribution of equal opportunities of wealth
- non-Development of agricultural and marine resources
“Whatever the champions of APECO have claimed, the facts show that the project is unconstitutional and legally questionable,” said Talaban. “None of the communities of Casiguran were ever consulted during the creation of the Angara’s APECO project, and none of the IP tribes gave their ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’," he added. Also he said, "until to today, the local government units of Casiguran have yet to give their approval of the project. All of these are clear legal violations that the Supreme Court should carefully consider.” Talaban and local residents of Casiguran were also joined by Baguio Bishop Carlito Cenzon, who expressed solidarity with the anti-APECO townsfolk. “I am also appealing to the president of our country and our justices to revisit this project that seems have bulldozed itself into Casiguran, and trampled over the rights of the people there,” Cenzon said. “Beloved president, beloved justices who are here in their summer session in Baguio City, please listen to the cries of our brothers and sisters from Casiguran,” he added.
Angara denies allegations In a
speech at the Senate late last year, Sen. Angara denied allegations against APECO. He also branded as "wild allegations" Sen. Sergio Osmeña III's claims against the Aurora project. Osmeña had pushed for "zero" budget for the economic zone as it allegedly failed to attract investors. "I would like to invite Mr. Vicious to come and visit Aurora so that he doesn't make these wild allegations,” said Angara in his senate speech in November 2012. “We'll invite him so that he will see the actual developments… so that he'll stop saying that APECO is for the Angaras," he added. Also, Angara said lawmakers are fully aware that APECO will definitely make money because it is a zone that has the best location in the country. "With the APECO, in effect you are unlocking the potential of one million hectares of land," Angara said, adding that APECO will provide a gateway to the Pacific and open up an alternate route for the residents of Cagayan Valley. He also said PAGASA gave him a record of the weather disturbances that have hit Aurora. "We are just used as a reference point. So that kind of ignorance that Osmeña is saying should already stop," he said.
Indigenous peoples Angara also denied that the establishment of APECO displaced indigenous people in the area. He said that they built resettlement houses for owners who sold their lands to APECO. "In other words they already got back their money's worth, and yet we give them a brand new house plus a guaranteed employment," Angara said. He added that by January 2013, 500 people will be provided jobs by APECO. Despite his family’s links to APECO, Angara said their critics must not use the "political dynasty" argument against them because his relatives got their positions on their own merit. Rep. Sonny Angara and Aurora Governor Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, the senator's sister, sit in the APECO board. He argued that under the law, the province's governor and congressman would sit on the APECO board. "It's under the law. Let's change the law if they don’t want that. It's the same for other trade zones," he said.
— LBG/BM, GMA News 
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