BEING a tropical and archipelagic country, the Philippines is blessed with plenty of water both in the seas and inland. Unlike countries in vast deserts, water should be the least of our problems but that is not the case, as evidenced by the recent floods caused by typhoon “Carina” and the southwest monsoon.
The floodwaters that inundated the whole of Metro Manila especially the northern cities of Marikina, Navotas, Malabon, Caloocan, Valenzuela and Quezon City have belied what President Bongbong Marcos had boasted two days earlier in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) that the government is doing well in the field of flood control.
People are asking now, if it is true that the Marcos administration has completed 5,500 flood control projects, why is it that the metropolis suffered the waist-deep floods, even higher in some areas, which made it a necessity for thousands of residents to relocate to higher ground?
‘We said it before and we are saying it again: The government has to act now — and fast — before the next catastrophic natural disaster strikes.’
The Metro Manila Development Authority and the Department of Public Works and Highways both have much to explain on this problem, but what did we hear? DPWH Undersecretary Catalina Cabral said the number 5,500 of completed projects is small, as the department has 5,000 more flood control projects in the pipeline. She said that had they not done these projects, the National Capital Region would have been completely washed out.
And so, we Filipinos should even be thankful that the flood reached the interior of most of our homes.
In the end, the natural disaster sent many government agencies to act. The Department of Natural Resources and the municipality of Tanay, Rizal filed a complaint with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and together, they raided an exclusive and expensive resort and glamping site inside Tanay’s watershed and protected area which they claimed to be illegal. The NBI even lectured the public on the way cutting trees in watersheds contribute to flooding in the lowlands.
On matters of policy, the Senate leadership is now determined to approve a bill seeking to establish a Department of Water Resources, not only to address floods during the rainy season but also the water shortage in times of El Niño.
Senate President Francis Escudero said he hopes the measure, which is one of the priority bills of President Marcos Jr., will be passed by the Senate within the year. There are several pending bills on water management, both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
“Hopefully, within the year, we will be able to create the Department of Water that the administration is asking for, and hopefully, we will be able to integrate, and through convergence, be able to use water that we don’t need during flooding, or water that we need during El Niño episodes in our country,” Escudero said. The goal is to pass the water bill before Congress goes on recess in October.
Sen. Grace Poe filed Senate Bill No. 102, or the National Water Resource Management Act, and her Committee on Public Services had started discussions on it when she was still the panel’s chairwoman.
With the creation of the DWR, Poe believes that the national government would “effectively manage” the country’s 421 river basins, 59 natural lakes, 100,000 hectares of freshwater swamps, 50,000 square km. of groundwater reservoir, and 2,400 millimeters of average rainfall throughout the year.
We said it before and we are saying it again: The government has to act now — and fast — before the next catastrophic natural disaster strikes.
