Absence of top DPWH execs irks lawmakers in flood probe

TYPHOON DAMAGE. Members of Iglesia ni Cristo’s SCAN International ferry residents and their pets to higher grounds amid floods along Araneta Avenue in Quezon City on Wednesday (July 24, 2024).  —Philippine News Agency photo by Ben Briones

MANILA, Philippines — A House inquiry meant to get to the bottom of last week’s widespread flooding in Metro Manila didn’t go that deep, so to speak, due to the absence of ranking officials from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

At a hearing called by the House committee on Metro Manila development on Wednesday, lawmakers were dismayed that only mid-level DPWH personnel were sent to face them.

One of the officials present, project director Jose Bolivar, discussed how the agency dealt with the flooding at the height of Supertyphoon Carina (international name: Gaemi).

READ: Carina floods leave PH capital in state of calamity

But it soon became apparent to the panel members that Bolivar was in no position to answer their more important question: What happened to the 5,500 “finished” flood-control projects President Marcos proudly mentioned in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 22?

This prompted a visibly peeved Quezon Rep. Franz Pumaren to ask: “Where are the Usecs (undersecretaries) and the Asecs (assistant secretaries)?”

“We want a written explanation as to why they’re not here,” Pumaren said, making a formal motion to the committee. “Of course, you (Bolivar) are in project management so you have a different expertise, but most of our questions relate to big-ticket projects, upcoming projects.”

They’re in other room

“Are they (the no-show public officials) that busy? We’re just wasting our time here,” he added.

According to DPWH-National Capital Region Director Lorie Malaluan, one of the department officers present, most of the agency’s ranking officers were actually just in a nearby room where the House committee on public works was conducting a hearing on the same issue.

But the lawmakers in the committee on Metro Manila development were barely appeased since the DPWH representatives who faced them could not give the status of even just 428 of the 5,500 flood control projects cited in the Sona.

“If that’s the case, I now doubt the report of Marcos,” said ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro. “This is alarming. Carina is not the only typhoon that will hit us this year. The rainy season has just begun and we have to be very quick.”

Carina’s ‘superlatives’

According to Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Romando Artes, most of the capital region’s drainage systems were constructed in the 1970s and, now heavily silted, could hold only 15 milliliters to 25 millimeters of rainfall every hour.

Carina, Artes said, dumped 74 mm of rain per hour, a rate much higher than that of Typhoon “Ondoy” (Ketsana) that left hundreds dead in Metro Manila in 2009.

“Carina really brought a lot of superlatives,” added DPWH engineer Jerry Fano. “We were very much overwhelmed by that kind of rainfall, which is equivalent to a 120-year return period.”

“In that case, we should make a new standard,” said Valenzuela Rep. Eric Martinez. “Our new standard should no longer be Ondoy but Carina-type rain.”

Muntinlupa Mayor Ruffy Biazon, meanwhile, blamed the ongoing reclamation projects in Manila Bay, saying they hampered the flow of floodwater out of the metropolis.