ROSALES, PANGASINAN?The night the Agno River rampaged, Fatima Rosalin, 32, and her three young children were about to have dinner in their small house just behind the dike at Barangay Carmen East.

Tropical Storm ?Pepeng? (international codename: Parma) had been drenching the area the whole day that Thursday. Never did she know that in a matter of seconds, she and her children would be running for their lives as the river overflowed and within minutes crushed the earth dike nearby.

?The flood water came fast,? Rosalin said, clutching her year-old child in a makeshift shelter across the road from her house that had been destroyed.

Rosalin and other residents in the area said there was no warning that the San Roque Dam in San Manuel, Pangasinan, had opened all of its six spillway gates that same day, spewing excess water at 2,500 cubic meters per second, inundating Rosales.

As Rosalin picked up her three children to move to a higher ground, the lights went off and in pitch darkness and chest-deep flood water, she groped her way to a two-story house almost a block away.

?Our house is gone. We saved nothing,? said Rosalin, a single mother.

When the skies cleared on Friday, she would find out that houses and business establishments just behind the earth dike over a two-kilometer stretch were either swept away or torn down by the devastating floodwater.

?In the past, when San Roque was not still there, Binga and Ambuklao dams also released water. But the water did not overflow,? said Narciso Casilang, 62, a tricycle driver who lived two blocks away from Rosalin?s house.

Panic during the night

On the night the dike broke, Casilang said there was panic. ?It was to each his own. Others went to relatives? houses, while others went up to their rooftops,? he said.

?I first saved my family. I moved them to my neighbor, whose house had a second floor,? he added.

They had barely settled in his neighbor?s house when he saw his wooden house being swept away. ?All that?s left is the roof,? he said.

Roger Tan, a rice mill operator, said he lost some P10 million. ?I wasn?t able to transfer my stocks [of palay and rice]. They all got wet,? Tan said.

?There wasn?t enough time for us to evacuate when it was announced that the dam was opening all its spillway gates,? he said.

Tan said his milling equipment and several trucks and vehicles were submerged. ?It?s good I was able to evacuate my parents,? he said.

?We?ve lived here in the last 60 years and this is the first time that this happened,? Tan said.

No warning

Tan said residents were never warned about the huge volume of water that was to be released that day.

?We did not receive any warning. I just got a text message from a friend saying that the San Roque Dam had opened all its gates,? he said.

In Villasis town, local officials said the earth dike had some parts leaking even before the San Roque Dam opened its spillway gates.

Teofilo Salazar, barangay captain of Puelay, said he and other members of the barangay council began sandbagging at least two spots in the eastern part of the dike when rains caused the river to swell.

?These are already old dikes. I was still a child and these are already here,? he said.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, Salazar said a part of the dike burst, toppling a classroom and two houses. No one was reported hurt.

With the 30-meter breach, flooding engulfed the village.

?Before the San Roque Dam was allowed to operate full blast, they should have first attended to the dikes. These are already weak,? Salazar said.

Fidel Ginez, head of the Agno flood control system, said he was still determining the damage in the dike, which stretched on both sides of the Agno River from San Manuel to Lingayen towns.

But earlier reports showed that other parts of the dike also collapsed, causing widespread flooding in villages in San Nicolas, Rosales, Sto. Tomas, Villasis and Bayambang towns.

Calls for inquiry

In San Nicolas, Sen. Francis Escudero said San Roque Dam officials should answer for the loss of lives and destruction that the dam?s excess water had wrought on communities along the Agno River.

?If it will be proven that the dam released that large volume of water in a short notice and no warning system, then [the firm running the dam] is answerable,? said Escudero, who was in Pangasinan Sunday to distribute relief goods and assess flood damage.

Sen. Loren Legarda said she would invite heads of agencies, including National Power Corp., in charge of managing the dams in Luzon to attend Wednesday?s hearing of the Senate committee on climate change.

?They have to explain the release of the water from these dams,? said Legarda, chair of the committee looking at lessons from the recent storm devastation.

Profit-driven venture

The militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) also called for an inquiry.

?One problem of the San Roque Dam is that it is not really a flood control mechanism but a profit-driven venture that requires high water levels to run its turbines. This may have influenced the management decision to release water from the dam at a later date,? Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes Jr. said in a statement.

?Also, there appeared to be no government oversight and intervention in this situation, even when public safety was at stake. This should also be looked into,? he said.

Bayan also criticized Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr, chair of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, for allegedly evading accountability and passing all the blame to dam executives for the flooding in Pangasinan.

?Teodoro is as accountable as the dam executives,? said Bayan chair Carol Araullo. With reports from Amy R. Remo and Christine O. Avendano