‘I pray no more rains hit us’
As far as farmer Efren Clemente is concerned, the floods spawned by Typhoon “Pedring” in Central Luzon beginning on the night of Sept. 26 were the biggest and highest that he had encountered since 1972.
And the water was slow to recede. Right where he lives, in Barangay Gulap in Candaba, Pampanga, the water level reached up to his neck on Tuesday.
Clemente, 72, finds this disturbing because his village sits right within the Candaba Swamp, a natural flood retarding basin.
His observations are matched by data obtained from 18 stations set up by the government along the Pampanga River Basin, the main drainer of 30 river systems in Central Luzon.
“The floods [of Pedring] are remarkably high,” says Hilton Hernando, chief of the Pampanga River Basin Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (PRBFFWC). “In fact, they broke the records gathered in those stations in 10 to 15 years.”
The center was the first of its kind set up in the country in 1973, but its facilities and equipment had only been upgraded in recent years courtesy of foreign loans.
High rainfall volume
It was not because nature was quirky. For Hernando, the 400 cubic meters released from Bulacan’s Angat Dam and its extensions, the Ipo and Bustos dams, as well as the high tide at the mouth of the Pampanga River contributed only 30 percent to the floods.
The bulk of the water, about 70 percent, originated from Nueva Ecija. “Heavy rainfall in Nueva Ecija was the big factor,” Hernando says.
The highest average rainfall volume at 1 p.m. on Sept. 27 was recorded at 27.78 millimeters in an hour, rainfall data showed.
Spread over the size of the Pampanga River Basin (10,454 square kilometers), that means having 290.4 billion liters or 1.4 billion drums of water, Hernando says.
By the afternoon of Sept. 27, Bongabon and Laur towns in Nueva Ecija were already isolated by floods, with people climbing to rooftops. This scene was repeated many times over in Bulacan.
By then, too, the Cabiao Floodway, Candaba Swamp and San Antonio Swamp had overflowed, with the Candaba Swamp taking in more water from the breached Bulo Dam in San Miguel, Bulacan. All these gushed to the Pampanga River, swelling it and disgorging the excess water to the coastal towns of Pampanga and Bulacan.
Flooding was worst in Pulilan, Calumpit and Hagonoy towns in Bulacan and Masantol town in Pampanga because these are located at the delta (mouth) of the Pampanga River.
Marino Macapagal, barangay chair of San Agustin in Candaba, says water was a meter higher last week compared to floods triggered by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” and Typhoon “Pepeng” in 2009.
Houses built on 6.09-meter (20 feet) high concrete stilts in San Agustin’s sub-village (purok), Little Baguio, had only three inches of clearance before the floor was flooded on Sept. 30.
The filling up of swamps is a regular natural occurrence, Hernando says, but getting large amounts of rain is a recent phenomenon.
Residents’ safety
The Carranglan (Nueva Ecija) side of the Sierra Madre mountains is among the three sites that will be reforested through a P5-billion loan obtained during President Aquino’s visit to Japan, says Ricardo Calderon, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
As rains get heavier and floods turn more severe, civil defense officials worry over the safety of residents who, while used to perennial floods, are more vulnerable.
The floods and the howling winds of Pedring claimed some 30 lives in the region, affected 1.7 million people, and left homeless almost 10,000 people.
“We’d like our local officials to increase their capacities in reducing the risk of disasters on their constituents,” says Josefina Timoteo, chief of the Office of Civil Defense in the region.
Banca (boats) proved to be lifesaving, says Paolo Vazquez, a carpenter. These are indispensable contraptions in old riverbank communities in Pampanga and Bulacan.
Military and OCD officials who inspected Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Bulacan and Tarlac by helicopter say a large part of these provinces remained flooded as of Monday.
Clemente, chair of the Kalipunan ng Malayang Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon, says the government should help farmers resume palay planting in November.
“It should start giving out palay and vegetable seeds and farm rehabilitation support as soon as the water is gone. Or else, there is little rice for everyone,” Clemente says. “I pray no more rains hit us this year.”
