Marcos: Rivers weren’t not this dry before

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his speech at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, before flying to Brunei Darussalam for an official visit. INQUIRER.net/Ryan Leagogo

LAOAG CITY—President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. lamented the state of the country’s rivers on Friday and blamed siltation and the lack of dredging for the damage of Supertyphoon “Julian” over the past the two weeks.

“I don’t remember the rivers being this shallow before. I’ve never seen them this shallow, all the time that I spent here,” the President said as he assessed the typhoon’s damage.

“They’ve been silted for a long time. Even trees are growing on the silt. It wasn’t really dredged,” he said, renewing his interest in river siltation and flooding, which he expressed months before.

The President issued a slew of orders to government agencies as he visited Ilocos Norte and Batanes, two of the Northern Luzon provinces worst hit by the typhoon, which dissipated on Friday morning.

“It’s terrible, it’s everywhere. It will take us a long time to fix that problem because there’s so much of it,” Marcos said, noting that in some waterways, the water level was just one meter below bridges.

“I think that’s the main problem that we’re facing. It’s the siltation. And that’s what is causing all these damage that we’re seeing. I think that’s the root problem and I think that’s the one that we have to attend to.”

He then said he will ask the private sector to help in dredging rivers and waterways of silt so that more water can flow freely.

“I will talk to some of the big companies who are specialized, who are doing this. Maybe we have to import equipment from China, from Taiwan, wherever,” the President said.

At the same time, the President lamented the typhoon’s expected impact on farmers and the prices of goods, which ironically dropped to 1.9 percent in September, a significant decrease from 3.3 percent in August.

“We’ll have to assist our farmers. They lost one planting season,” Marcos told Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu-Laurel, who reported that the country lost 15,000 tons of crops due to Julian.

Laurel said they have carried out appropriate interventions, including P164.27 million in agricultural inputs, such as rice, corn, and vegetable seeds from Department of Agriculture regional field offices in Northern Luzon. INQ