Instead of a “localized patchwork approach,” Senator Nancy Binay on Monday urged the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to come up with an integrated flood management plan for the country.

Citing the advent of climate change and rapid urbanization, Binay stressed the need for the DPWH to create a “fully national-level flood management plan” that would integrate and rationalize the various flood plans of local government units.

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“Sa ngayon, ang DPWH ay naka-focus ang mga ginagawang flood control management plan sa urban flooding at hindi gaano sa rural flooding,” she said in a statement.

“Napaka-localized ng focus at kapag dumating ang habagat o bagyo, totoong ngang nawala ang baha sa isang lugar, kaso napunta naman ang tubig doon sa mga karatig bayan,” the senator added.

Conceding that the DPWH needed to address the decade’s long problem of flooding in Metro Manila and those in other major cities, Binay lamented that the DPWH’s “retail approach” had left out nearby provinces that were equally vulnerable to flood.

The senator noted that Metro Manila had allotted P352 billion spread over 23 years. But since the approval of DPWH’s flood control plans for the metropolis in 2012, she said, no major infrastructure like the P198-billion Pasig-Marikina-River Improvement and Dam project has been started.

Binay said the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) also failed to complete 47 flood control projects worth P337.5 million, out of the 68 projects amounting to P459 million, only 21 projects were implemented in 2017.

“In these extreme times, we cannot divorce flooding from the rain. Aside from the localized flood control plan, a collaborative approach with respect to risk scenarios is a must on the national level,” she said.

“We need to project and examine how climate change will impact in the next 25 to 50 years under extreme conditions, how this would change risk and hazard patterns aggravated by rapid urbanization, the mounting garbage problems, unregulated land use and environmental abuse.”

“We need to have a national level flood management plan which will reflect every local condition and unique climatic experiences for the past 50 years. An integrated system that will identify and correct the gaps as far as infrastructure, policies, procedures and protocols are concerned—with flood emergency planning and DRRM mainstreamed in every government level,” the senator added. /cbb

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