COTABATO CITY – Victims of perennial inundations have hailed a recent announcement about President Duterte having ordered the dredging of four major rivers in the country, notably the 622,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh that usually spills massive floods in Central Mindanao during rainy days.
Most praises came from thousands of villagers and officials in Maguindanao, the country’s “land of flooded plains” to most number of Muslim Filipinos, where rains lasting for less than an hour always meant
“This (announced Presidential order) is most welcomed. It bespeaks of impending relief for us,” the Maguindanao’s league of 36 municipalities led by Mayor Freddie Mangudadatu said in a text message, citing common sentiments among majority of the province’s more than one million residents.
Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said the President has ordered the dredging of the Liguasan Marsh and the three major flood-spewing rivers of Agusan, Pampanga and Cagayan provinces.
“President Rody Duterte last night approved my recommendation to start the dredging of four major rivers in the country which are heavily silted resulting to floods which destroy crops and properties every year,” Piñol said in a news report he wrote and published last Wednesday.
Duterte “directed the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) to work with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to implement the dredging,” Piñol said.
“The long-term (anti-flood) solution agreed by the DENR, DA and DILG during a meeting Monday was to implement the President's directive of a total log ban in the headwaters of the rivers and to reforest the mountains,” he added.
Piñol said the “dredging operations will be a stop-gap measure to avert flooding in areas (surrounding the Liguasan Marsh and in Agusan, Pampanga and Cagayan) where rivers pass through.”
The announcement was silent about the role of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) in the implementation and supervision of dredging and rehabilitation of the 622,000-herctare Liguasan Marsh, the largest water-catch basin in Southern Philippines spanning Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and parts of South Cotabato.
The Arroyo administration had allocated P50-million for the planning alone of anti-flood interventions in the Liguasan Marsh. The Aquino government approved in 2015 a P6.97-billion budget for a corresponding rehabilitation package, designating MinDA as main project oversight body.
The provincial governments of Maguindnao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato usually declared a state calamity in their respective areas every time heavy rains-driven inundation occurred and displaced thousands of families in low-lying towns.
Since the brunt of inundations usually gripped its constituents, the Maguindanao provincial government had declared a state of calamity in 2014, 2015 and 2016. It almost made a similar declaration this year, but the plan prevailed upon by technical workers’ reports that locally-initiated dredging operations were gaining headway.
Maguindanao officials, out of a P1-billion government loan, purchased in 2016 two modern dredging machines now operating in rivers cascading to and from the Liguasan Marsh. But technical people said the two dredgers’ works would not suffice, stressing the need for speedy start of the stalled Liguasan Marsh project. (Ali G. Macabalang)
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