MANILA, Philippines?Water equivalent to a billion balikbayan boxes tumbling at the rate of 5,000 cartons per second hit 10 hapless towns in Pangasinan province on Thursday when the San Roque dam spillways were opened amid a storm drenching and swirling floodwaters, scientists say.

Now, administrators of the dam owned by National Power Corp. (Napocor) and operated by the San Roque Multipurpose Project (SRMP) are going to be clobbered with various criminal and civil suits being prepared by irate residents and provincial officials.

Gov. Amado Espino Jr. on Monday said the provincial government was haling San Roque officials to court for the widespread destruction that last week?s flooding worsened with the opening of the spillways.

?I have asked our lawyers to prepare a suit,? Espino said.

For people to visualize how much water was released from the dam, Catherine Abon, a geologist from the University of the Philippines and member of Agham, an organization of local scientists, said that one cubic meter of water was much like one balikbayan box.

The San Roque Dam in San Manuel town releases an average of 83.6 cubic meter per second, she said.

When dam officials finally decided to open the spillway gates of the reservoir before the water level reached the critical level, they practically increased the average flow by ?more than tenfold,? Abon said.

?Based on our computation, it was unbelievable that with 5,000 cubic meters released per second, it was like having a billion balikbayan boxes dumped on Pangasinan in a day,? said Agham chair Giovanni Tapang, who is also with the University of the Philippines? National Institute of Physics.

A balikbayan box measures two feet by two feet. If it is shipped, freight cost is based on size. If airfreight, it is weighed.

In a press conference organized by the leftist Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Tapang wondered why the state weather bureau increased the spilling level of San Roque Dam from 280 meters to 288 meters.

?Before, at 280 meters, the San Roque Dam would already release water. Why did they have to wait for 288 meters [during Tropical Storm ?Pepeng?]?? Tapang said.

Tapang also questioned the seemingly delayed release of water from the dam.

?As early as Oct. 4, there was already a huge spike in water levels in the dam. Why did they release water only on Oct. 7, 8 and 9? Did they just want to gather enough water for its power generation?? Tapang said.

No warning

The towns of San Manuel, San Nicolas, Tayug, Sta. Maria, Asingan, Villasis, Alcala, Bautista, Rosales and Bayambang went under in the torrent from the dam that aggravated flooding as a result of five days of rains brought by Pepeng (international name: Parma).

Pepeng slammed across northern Luzon on Oct. 3 with the force of a typhoon. It tarried over the area as a storm and later as a depression until Oct. 10 when it swept out into the South China Sea.

Provincial officials and residents claimed that they were not warned that the dam?s gates would be opened, resulting in deaths and multimillion-peso damage to property and agricultural crops.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said that as of 10 a.m. Monday, the San Roque Dam and the Magat Dam in Isabela still had one spillway gate open.

Both the Ambuklao Dam and Binga Dam in Benguet each have two gates open.

Tapang said that as early as 1998, there had already been local and international protests against the construction of the San Roque Multipurpose Dam but the project still went ahead and was completed in March 2003.

Since then, local communities experienced flooding whenever a storm struck and the dam?s gates opened, he said.

Destructive gov?t projects

?In addition to lack of disaster preparedness, the Arroyo government still pursues policies and destructive projects such as large-scale mining and large dams that destroy our environment and make communities more vulnerable and at higher risk to floods, landslides and other disasters,? said Clemente Bautista Jr. of the environment group Kalikasan.

San Roque Dam officials have remained mum on the planned class suit against their company in spite of the Inquirer?s repeated request for comment.

Former Court of Appeals Associate Justice Teodoro Regino, a resident of Dagupan City, said he would lead the filing of a class suit against NPC and SRMP.

In 1998, Regino sued NPC for the massive flooding in Pangasinan due to the excess water released from the Binga and Ambuklao dams in Benguet. The case is now pending at a Regional Trial Court in Dagupan.

Rosales Mayor Ricardo Revita, whose town was one of the worst hit, said he was also considering suing the dam officials for lapses in decision making and lack of foresight.

New SM mall swamped

Rosales? business district, where a newly opened SM mall is located, was swamped by floods that reached at least five feet.

Farmers and business groups said they would file a separate damage suit against the SRMP after floods destroyed their properties.

?There?s too much devastation. It could run to hundreds of millions,? said Rosendo So, president of the Eastern Pangasinan Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Anong Manalo, president of the Region 1 Confederation of Irrigators? Associations, said several thousands of hectares of rice land were flooded in Rosales, Villasis, Tayug and other eastern Pangasinan towns, destroying crops and killing farm animals.

?The floodwaters deprived our farmers a source of their livelihood,? he said.

Pangasinan Rep. Victor Agbayani, a former governor, said dam officials should explain to the people of Pangasinan the apparent suddenness of the water release.

?Believe it or not, if the San Roque Dam was not built, and there is no dam to hold the rainwater from the mountains, the floodwater could have easily been twice as much in volume and destruction,? he said.

No calibrated release

Former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said dam officials should be answerable to the ?indiscriminate? release of water. ?That should be investigated. There should have been a calibrated release.?

Sen. Francis Escudero, a presidential aspirant who visited Pangasinan over the weekend, said he was helping the local officials pursue a court action for damages.

?This is a class suit,? he told reporters. ?So far, there are just a few names there.?

Undersecretary Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology attributed the flooding to the unprecedented 675 millimeters of rain brought by Pepeng.

?So that, basically, would explain why northern Luzon was inundated,? he said in a press briefing in Malacañang. ?With or without the opening of the dam, there (still) would (have been) flooding in northern Luzon.? With reports from Christian V. Esguerra; Yolanda Sotelo and Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon