CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines—Forest cover in the western side of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, while “adequate” in normal circumstances, could no longer absorb heavy rainfall, the release of water from three dams in Bulacan and the high tide that triggered severe flooding in Central Luzon at the height of typhoon “Pedring” last week, an environment official said.
Ricardo Calderon, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said these factors contributed to the widespread flooding in communities along the Pampanga River, the main drainer in Central Luzon.
“Kahit mataas ang forest cover, hindi kayang i-retain ang tubig (Although our forest cover is high, the trees could not retain the volume of water),” Calderon said.
Forests and trees act like sponges, he said. The region’s major forest reserves are in the Upper Pampanga River Basin and Talavera Watershed Forest Reserve in Nueva Ecija, according to Calderon.
The highest average rainfall at 27.78 millimeters per hour was recorded on September 27 at 1 p.m. in 18 stations, data collected at the Pampanga River Basin Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (PRBFFWC) showed.
At that rate and with the basin spanning 10,454 square kilometers, the rains produced 290.4 billion liters, or 1.4 billion drums, of water in just an hour, said PRBFFWC chief Hilton Hernando.
Calderon said illegal logging was “not rampant” in the forests of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.
“There are isolated incidents of poaching,” he said.
But reports reaching the Philippine Daily Inquirer showed otherwise, with informants claiming that some local officials have been in cahoots with illegal loggers.
Hernando, chief of the PRBFFWC, said residents of coastal towns in Pampanga and Bulacan would have to deal with floods spawned by typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” for at least four to five days more.
Floods of longer durations are expected to linger this week near the banks of the Pampanga River in the towns of Arayat, Sta. Ana, Candaba, San Luis, San Simon, Apalit, Macabebe and Masantol in Pampanga, as well as in Calumpit, Hagonoy and Paombong in Bulacan, said Hernando.
In Bulacan, floodwaters, which inundated the towns of Calumpit, Hagonoy, Pulilan and Baliuag, as well as parts of Malolos City, subsided by as much as a meter (three feet) when the sun rose on Sunday. These areas experienced floodwaters as high as 3.35 meters (11 feet) on Thursday and Friday as Pedring was dumping heavy rains on its way to the West Philippine Sea.
The Bulacan provincial board placed the province under a state of calamity on Friday after agricultural and infrastructure damage was placed at P1 billion.
A total of 1,174 villages – 327 in Bulacan and 333 in Pampanga – remained flooded on Sunday, reports from the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the region said.
The PRBFFWC, the first facility of such nature in the country, was relocated to Pampanga by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) in 2008, and was modernized in 2009 through a P400-million grant from the Japanese government.
Hernando’s team monitors the fast transmission of data from a network of automatic monitoring stations, including three repeater stations set up in Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Bulacan.
The system provides hourly, real-time information on the intensity of rainfall and levels of water in the Pampanga River and its tributaries, including the Guagua River in Pampanga.
The Pampanga River, which is connected to the Sierra Madre and Caraballo mountain ranges, is where more than 30 river systems in Central Luzon converges before the river water discharges into the Manila Bay, according to Pagasa information.
The town of Bulakan and the cities of Marilao and Meycauayan in Bulacan province face the bay.
The swollen Pampanga River started receding slowly on Sunday, Hernando said. But experts expect the river to rise again on Sunday night or Monday morning as Nueva Ecija drains out a “substantial” volume of water from rains triggered by Quiel, according to Hernando.
Reading stations on several sections of the river showed that Pampanga’s water level has breached critical levels.
For instance, the Candaba station registered 7.01 meters at 5 a.m. and 6.95 meters by noon on Sunday. The station’s critical level mark is set at 5 meters.
“The increase [in water levels] will be felt more downstream,” Hernando said. That is where many of the coastal towns are located.
Bulacan Governor Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado blamed the water released by the National Power Corp. and the National Irrigation Administration from the Angat, Ipo and Bustos dams at the height of Pedring on September 27 for widespread flooding in his province.
Authorities report that 15 of the 23 people who died in Central Luzon were residents of Bulacan. Nine of them were children who died from drowning or electrocution.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman went to Bulacan on Saturday to inspect the impact of the floods and coordinate with local officials on relief operations.
A text message from a resident of Hagonoy town said food and grocery outlets in the town were closed. “There is no available [bottled] mineral water to buy,” the resident said.
“We were only able to supply half of the evacuated families with relief goods, but we prioritized areas which rescue teams could not reach because the flood waters are still too high,” said Norma Luarca, an employee of the Bulacan administrator’s office who mans the provincial disaster command center.
Mary Jane Eleogo, a resident of Barangay (village) San Jose in Calumpit, said she spent P800 to hire a boat and a helper on Saturday so she could rescue her mother and 30 other family members who had been staying on their rooftops.
Armando Baytiong, Eleogo’s uncle, said their experience taught them to flee and seek safer ground upon receiving the initial flood alert.
Bulacan officials said some 62,000 residents had been evacuated. Records from the provincial government showed that 765,320 residents were affected by the floods.
As of Sunday, at least 121,672 people, mostly in Bulacan, remained in evacuation centers throughout Central Luzon, an OCD report said.
Pedring and Quiel damaged P600 million worth of crops and P200 million worth of roads, bridges, dikes and canals in Bulacan.
As of Sunday, about 2,000 soldiers continue to evacuate residents in flood-hit areas in Bulacan and Pampanga or deliver food and water, according to Major General Jessie Dellosa, commander of the military’s Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom).
Dellosa said some 40 rubbers boats, military trucks and helicopters have been involved in the rescue and relief operations. Air dropping of food and bottled water resumed on Sunday.
Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda set up centers in towns along the Pampanga River on Saturday to help flood-affected residents.
“We have been advising residents to leave the Arnedo Dike because this is already unstable and it is eroding in many parts. It is not a safe dike so they better leave and go the evacuation centers we opened,” Pineda told the Inquirer by telephone.
Almost 700 policemen have been fielded to assist in rescue and relief missions, said Chief Superintendent Edgardo Ladao, police regional director.
In Tarlac, some 40 villages in Camiling town were flooded on Saturday when the Camiling River overflowed due to heavy rains and water flowing from upland areas in the province, reports from the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC) showed.
Water that reached between 1.21 and 1.52 meters (or between 4 and 5 feet) on Saturday, had receded on Sunday, allowing vehicles to pass through roads in the town.
Only 10 villages in Camiling’s western section remained under water, as of Sunday.
Several villages in the towns of La Paz, Paniqui and Concepcion were also flooded, said Tarlac Gov. Victor Yap.
The OCD said residents of Barangay Villapaz in Gerona and Barangay Talimundok Marimla in Concepcion, both in Tarlac, put sandbags in eroded portions of rivers and dikes in their villages.
In Nueva Ecija, residents woke up to clear skies on Sunday but those in low-lying areas, especially people living along the Pampanga River, were alerted about a possible rise in water level after heavy rains on Saturday.
Pantabangan Dam’s water level rose by two meters on Sunday and was recorded at 208.52 meters above sea level (masl).
Reynaldo Puno, operations manager of the Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems (UPRIIS), allayed fears that the dam would release water as its reservoir level was still below the 221 masl spilling level.
Farmers took advantage of the good weather and started harvesting palay spared by Pedring and Quiel.
Reports from agriculture offices in 27 towns and five cities in Nueva Ecija showed that the province lost some P3.65 billion worth of crops to Pedring and Quiel.—With reports from Jo Martinez-Clemente, Anselmo Roque and Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon