COTABATO CITY ? Low-lying villages of this city and adjacent Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao are still under water and officials are scrounging around for funds as only P5 million are left out of the P50 million that Malacañang had ordered released to ease flooding in the areas.

The areas have been flooded since July.

The funds were disbursed to the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development (MRBRD) Task Force oversees the flood control projects here and other Maguindanao areas.

Rains brought by Tropical Storm ?Ondoy,? plus rains dumped on Maguindanao by previous weather disturbances, submerged at least a dozen villages here and in Sultan Kudarat.

The floods turned the national highway in Barangay (village) Bulalo here into a river, making it impassable to all types of vehicles.

Solomon Badoy, task force executive director, said the more than P5 million in funds that were left of the P50 million that Malacañang ordered released would be used in widening the heavily-silted Simuay and Ambal rivers.

These rivers often overflow during continuous rains and send floods to low-lying areas in its path.

Heavy siltation has narrowed the river path, forcing water channels to swell, Badoy said.

He said there was a need to dredge the river to make it at least 60 meters wider. That would be 30 meters more than current plans to dredge the river to widen it by at least 30 meters.

This, Badoy said, would allow water to flow faster through the river toward the sea.

He said the widening project should be completed in two weeks as programmed by authorities.

?It would be hard to contain a big volume of water flowing in a narrow channel. There?s a need to widen them [the rivers],? he said.

Hundreds of families living in frequently flooded villages have remained in evacuation centers.

Government and non-government workers were attending to the needs of the evacuees.

The MRBRD flood control project has been assured of a P6-billion funding from the Office of the President.

The money is directly released to the DPWH, the agency that handles project expenditures, while the task force, chaired by Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, monitors the project?s progress and submits reports and recommendations to Malacañang.