Heavily logged Mt. Arayat may come sliding down?

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Many flood victims in Central Luzon are asking if President Noynoy Aquino is deliberately keeping distant from the calamity area.

If he does not have either time or desire to look after the stricken population, the President can at least ask for the reports of his Cabinet secretaries supposedly mobilized — then compare their estimate of the devastation and the amount of assistance and rehabilitation given so far.

Response from the national government to the Luzon calamity, aggravated by decades of neglect, has been a classic case of too little too late.

It cannot be that the government has no money. Is the administration hoarding the funds for strategic massive spending at some future time? Why not use resources now when these are urgently needed?

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BAND-AID: Drinking water in many sites has been reported as already contaminated. People wade in stinking water that is not just standing still but actually flowing, with the current bringing disease and destruction.

As water seeks its lowest level, looking for passage to Manila Bay, garbage and debris from upstream of the Pampanga River and other waterways find their way to the low-lying communities fated by topography to be on the losing end.

Even granting that the government suddenly moves in proportion to the destruction, it might discover that its band-aid efforts would hardly dent the problem.

Look at the kit being given out by the health department. It contains pills, a small bottle of alcohol (like what some people use to clean their hands when they eat out), etc. For how much was this bought under the “tuwid na landas” versus the market prices of the contents?

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POOR MT. ARAYAT!: If President Aquino is not afraid of riding helicopters (some people are), he should fly and inspect much-abused Mt. Arayat.

We have received reports that water cascading from it to the communities at the base carries materials indicating that the mountain standing watch over the plain is seriously eroded because of decades of wholesale cutting of the trees.

We pray it does not happen, but with the weather bureau warning of heavy rains and typhoons hitting us through next year, boulders and large volumes of topsoil could be washed down and bury the barangays around Mt. Arayat.

Even now, local folk talk of hearing rumblings during storms. These cannot be signs of a threatened eruption (Arayat is an inactive volcano), but possibly of earth and boulders being wrenched free.

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GANG-RAPED: We are reaping the fruits of piled-up neglect and abuse of Nature.

Look at the dikes. The badly damaged Arnedo dike, reassuring during its time decades ago, is now ineffective. The fallback levee built behind it — with American aid, I think — is also severely impaired.

Squatters, the usual scourge of human settlements, had been allowed to build houses on the earthen dikes. Gang-raped through the years while government watched unconcerned, the dikes now bleed in some places.

How can we repair the dikes with houses, some of strong materials, perched on them? What do we do with the blind officials, including those from the public works department, assigned to keep watch over the dikes?

Which is worse torture for them, plucking their eyes out or subjecting them to a Senate inquisition?

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REGIONAL APPROACH: We mention national agencies, because the problem has grown beyond the ken of local officials. Only a Herculean effort from line departments under the President will do.

The problem area is the entire Central Plain, not just Pampanga, Bulacan or Tarlac — which even in Spanish colonial times comprised the bread basket of the national capital.

The 260-kilometer Pampanga River is not just in Pampanga. Much of its waters come from the upstream areas of Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Bulacan. The regional topography is such that Pampanga is at its receiving end in the delta near Manila Bay.

A compartmentalized provincial approach will not work. The solution will have to be regional. That is where the wisdom and political will of the man in Malacañang will come in.

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CAN DO IT: In our Postscript of Oct. 13, we said that if the idea is to improve the free and fast outflow of the swollen Pampanga River, dredging should focus on its mouth and not so much on scattered spots along its length.

Dj. Wenceslao Jr., president of Bay Dredging Inc., said in an email: “We agree that the best way to alleviate the flooding of the coastal towns of Bulacan and Pampanga is to open up the clogged mouths of the river systems flowing towards Manila Bay.

“While the small DPWH river dredgers are dredging the upstream sections of the rivers, a big ocean-going cutter suction dredger (CSD) could be used to clean and deepen the mouths of the rivers from Manila Bay moving upstream. The CSD will work 24 hours a day and is big enough to be self-sufficient in dredging under difficult conditions. Once the water channels are dredged to sufficient depths and width, we expect that flood waters could move faster and more efficiently to the bay.”

Wenceslao said their company has access to specialized heavy-duty, ocean-going dredgers. He said that per procedure, “We are waiting for calls for bidding to solve this problem... we could however also submit unsolicited BOT proposals for this type of emergency works for the government. The resources in terms of the 5M’s (money, machinery, management, methodology, manpower) are available, that could immediately provide solutions to the emergency problems.”

He added: “Considering the billions of pesos lost in terms of damages to properties and loss of lives caused by the massive seasonal flooding of the affected areas, the long-term engineering benefits of dredging the mouths of the rivers leading to Manila Bay could be more than justified.”

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