MMDA flood control chief sacked

Heads finally rolled.

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chair Francis Tolentino has sacked the agency’s flood control office chief for “laxity bordering on incompetence” during the nonstop monsoon rains earlier this week.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Tolentino said Baltazar Melgar “didn’t ensure that the pumping stations in Taguig City and P. Tuazon tunnel (in Cubao, Quezon City) are operational before the floods hit these areas.”

Melgar, who has been the head of the flood control office for 15 years since the chairmanship of Bayani Fernando, will be replaced by Maxima Quiambao who heads the MMDA’s Operations and Maintenance Division 1.

Tolentino said several MMDA employees in the Taguig pumping stations were also relieved of their posts.

“We need a proactive flood control chief. He allowed the Laguna de Bay to swell without ensuring that the pumping stations had been refueled the night before,” Tolentino said.

On Wednesday, pumping stations designed to prevent flooding in areas near Laguna de Bay—including several barangays in Taguig—went idle starting in the early morning till mid-afternoon.

This was because the refueling truck which was then on its way to the pumping stations could not pass through the flooded roads and had to wait for hours for the water to subside, Tolentino said.

In Barangay Napindan, for example, the water rose quickly just before noon till 3 p.m., cutting off transportation and flooding hundreds of homes.

As to the P. Tuazon tunnel which was rendered impassable to vehicles on Wednesday, the flood control chief failed to install pumps to siphon off the water, Tolentino noted.

Asked why he no longer asked for Melgar to give his side, Tolentino said Melgar had already committed “too many breaches” in the past.

According to the MMDA chair, Melgar allowed the hole on an MMDA barge stationed in the Navotas River to go unfixed and “unreported for five years.”

He said he only learned about the damaged barge in a recent meeting with Navotas Mayor John Rey Tiangco.

Reached for comment, Melgar, an engineer, said: “It’s not our fault because we’re only involved in operations and we simply receive our fuel supply (taga-tanggap lang kami).”

“We knew on Tuesday that we were running out of fuel so we submitted emergency purchase requests to Tolentino for 6,000 liters for each of the 22 pumping stations. I don’t know what happened to these PRs,” he said.

In Taguig, even the city hall and the local police headquarters were not spared by the deluge.

City police chief Senior Supt. Tomas Apolinario said the city hall and his main station which share the same compound in Barangay Tuktukan were still swamped in knee-high flood as of yesterday.

Apolinario blamed the situation on the “breakdown of a nearby pumping station.”

A police liaison desk was set up at the auditorium of Taguig City University so his men could also help in the repacking and distribution of relief goods, he said.

Around 3,000 families had since been evacuated in the city, Apolinario added.

As of late Friday afternoon, portions of Barangay Napindan, Katuparan, Ligid Tipas, Palingon, San Miguel, Laura Drive, New Lower Bicutan, C5 northbound lane, and Levi Mariano in Taguig remained underwater and impassable to light vehicles.