What went wrong? Question lingers after the flooding

As the people of Bayawan City in Negros Oriental gradually get on with their lives after about 80 percent of their farms and houses on the flatlands were flooded, they also begin to look for answers to the question: What went wrong?

It seemed puzzling how a city renowned as a grand-slam winner of the Gawad Kalasag (Kalamidad at Sakuna Labanan, Sariling Galing ang Kaligtasan) Award could be brought to its knees by three days of successive torrential monsoon rains.

Six persons were killed while 3,000 families (20,000 individuals) fled their homes. Damage to agriculture reached P50 million; infrastructure, P40 million; and commercial establishments, P8 million. At least P1.8 million worth of textbooks were destroyed.

It had been raining on and off for most of that week, but the situation turned for the worse by Oct. 4 when the rain got stronger and did not stop.

Edilberito Euraoba III, operations officer of  Bayawan Public Safety Office (PSO) and the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMC), said his office had advised people in flood-prone areas in the afternoon of Oct. 5 to seek safety in higher grounds. But they refused, saying they were already used to floods.

By dawn of Oct. 6, calls for help started reaching the PSO as the flood reached unprecedented levels. Many victims had evacuated to the rooftops.

Euraoba dispatched the city’s two rescue boats to the hardest-hit barangays but there were just too many calls for assistance.

“There’s this feeling of helplessness. The task was simply overwhelming—so many people called us for help and we just couldn’t attend to everyone,” Euraoba said.

One of the rubber boats got punctured and became inoperable. With only one functional rescue boat in operation, rescuers had their hands full prioritizing the victims who needed immediate evacuation.

Mayor German Sarana Jr. was trapped in his home by chest-deep waters.  It took a boat from the Dumaguete City Rescue Unit to come around 10 a.m. of Oct. 5 and bring him to the City Hall to assume command of the disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Flooding on both ends of the city, which is bordered by the Bayawan River in the north and Sicopong River in the south,  rendered it isolated from the rest of Negros Oriental.

Buses and even 10-wheel trucks could not get through the floodwater.

“The current was very strong and the flood reached over 6 feet high,” said Jose Chiu, head of the Dumaguete City Rescue Unit.

With power cut off, communication facilities started to bog down.

“Our rescuers in the field eventually had problems with their two-way radios after they got wet in the rain and this made our operations more difficult,” Euraoba said.

Bringing food from the city to the evacuees at the Negros Oriental State University Bayawan campus was also impossible because the trucks could not get through the floods.

Big waves brought about by the southwest monsoon ruled out any rescue effort from the sea. “If the rain continued for one more day, there would have been a lot more deaths,” Euraoba said.

Rescuers from other local government units were pulled out by the afternoon of Oct. 5 because the rain threatened to engulf Dumaguete City and other areas with floods.

The Banica, Ocoy and Siaton rivers, which brought floods to Dumaguete City and the towns of Sibulan and Siaton in past heavy downpours, were close to spilling their dikes.

“That’s one important lesson we learned from this tragedy. We need to rely on our own resources. Once calamity strikes, you’re on your own,” said city public safety officer Cindy Salimbagat, also CDRRMC officer.

Noting how Negros Oriental came close to a bigger disaster, Gov. Roel Degamo asked President Aquino to release the P480-million balance of the P960-million calamity fund that had been earmarked for the repair of the infrastructure damaged by Tropical Storm “Sendong” in 2011.

Degamo said many people were spared from the floods in Dumaguete, Sibulan and Siaton due to the river dikes and river dredging and rechanneling projects that were undertaken with the initial release of P480 million last year.

The province identified P960 million worth of projects, which would repair the damage wrought by Sendong.

The Department of Budget and Management then transmitted the initial amount of P480 million but followed it up with a negative special allotment release order (Saro), indicating that it was getting back the money. It said the fund release did not follow certain required procedures.

The Commission on Audit also issued a notice of disallowance late last year on the contracts entered into by the province with Legazpi Construction Corp. in relation to this fund.

Instead of returning the money, the provincial government pushed through with the construction of the dikes, river dredging and rechanneling because, according to Degamo, the money was a calamity fund and was meant to protect lives.

He blamed the issuance of the negative Saro on politics since he ran against the President’s ally in the May 2013 elections.

Provincial engineer Franco Alpuerto said the P480 million was paid to the contractors who accomplished 64 percent of the projects included in the earlier list of projects.

River dikes measuring 1.5 kilometers had been set up along the Banica River in Dumaguete City, the Ocoy River in Sibulan town and the Siaton River in Siaton town.

“If not for these dikes, the monsoon rains would have caused more damage to life and property,” Degamo said.