Public Works dep’t eyes 5,000 flood projects this year

THE DEPARTMENT of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on Tuesday said more than 5,000 flood mitigation projects would be implemented across the country this year, after dozens died in floods caused by Super Typhoon Carina and the southwest monsoon rains.

These are on top of the 5,521 flood control projects completed between July 2022 and May 2024, which President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. reported in his third address to Congress, Public Works Secretary Manuel M. Bonoan told a news briefing.

“The recent heavy rainfall has underscored the importance of our flood control projects,” Mr. Bonoan said.�� “If not for these interventions, parts of Metro Manila could have seen worse flooding.”

He said drainage systems struggle to cope with Metro Manila’s rising population, now at�� more than 13 million. Its population density is 21,000 people per square kilometer.

“The population of Metro Manila has surpassed its carrying capacity,” Mr. Bonoan said. “We have limited space.”

Lawmakers have vowed to investigate the government’s flood-control projects after houses and people mostly in Metro Manila and nearby provinces were swept away by raging flood waters last week.

The Marikina River reached as high as 20 meters. Its water level rose to 21.5 meters during the 2009 devastation of Typhoon Ondoy, which killed more than 700 people, and to 22 meters during 2020’s Typhoon Ulysses, which killed about 100 people.

Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez last week said the House of Representatives would look into the government’s flood management budget to determine if it had been spent properly.

Funding for flood mitigation projects will remain in the proposed 2025 national budget, he added.

Senate President Francis “Chiz” G. Escudero said legislators should work to determine why — over a decade after Typhoon Ondoy — “chronic, severe flooding continues to afflict the nation’s capital.”

He said this year’s budget for flood-control projects was “disproportionately large” compared with other critical sectors.

It far exceeded the allocations for irrigation (P31 billion) and even the capital outlay budgets of the Department of Agriculture (P40.13 billion) and Department of Health (P24.57 billion), he pointed out.

The DPWH allocated P244.5 billion for its flood management program this year, according to a copy of the proposed 2024 General Appropriations Act. It allotted P104.7 billion for the construction and maintenance of flood mitigation structures.

At the same briefing, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Romando S. Artes described the capital region’s drainage system as “antiquated.”

It needs to be updated especially amid the worsening effects of climate change, he said, adding that “the water level will be higher in our oceans and typhoons are stronger.”

Mr. Bonoan said 70% of Metro Manila’s internal drainage system is silted with waste. “These need to be rehabilitated and upgraded.”

The MMDA said in April last year that its proposed 50-year drainage master plan had been approved by the World Bank, which will provide a loan.

Mr. Artes said the agency was still awaiting the loan.

The Philippines’ disaster agency on Tuesday said the death toll from the combined effects of Typhoon Carina (Gaemi) and the southwest monsoon had hit 39 and that the number of affected people had risen to 4.8 million.

The agency said 109,083 of the affected 4.84 million people, three million of whom were in Central Luzon, were staying in evacuation centers.

Damage to infrastructure hit P4.26 billion, with Central Luzon accounting for P1.6 billion of the total. Farm losses hit P5 billion. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza