Floods? No problem – for the Dutch!

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” I would venture to add that we also should stop relying on the same people who have been responsible for solving the problem for many decades but consistently failed.

The column title obviously refers to our perennial problem with flooding, whether it’s in Metro Manila or on the NLEX or wherever it has occurred time and again for decades. Our “thinking” has always been to throw money at the problem by cleaning esteros, canals or fixing dikes and irrigation canals just before the rainy season. We fool ourselves into believing it helps, but it doesn’t.

What happens is that those seasonal projects create temporary jobs in every barangay that endear politicians to those who get hired who in turn vote for their imagined “employers” who end up giving business and profits to contractors, coordinators and to themselves.

As Einstein suggested, we need to think differently in order to solve the problem. For starters, it would make a vast difference if Filipinos simply admitted that we have failed in our quest for legitimate “flood control” programs and systems that work. Floods have gotten out of our control and no matter the gallant efforts of the MMDA and the DPWH, we must admit that our solutions are too little, too primitive, too late. We simply are not qualified to fix the problem.

Yes, we have a sprinkling of accomplishments and valiant efforts such as San Miguel Corporation voluntarily dredging the Pasig River as well as tributaries that have visibly reduced flooding in certain areas where the Pasig River runs. But in terms of whole-of-country approach, what we need is a solution that is based on science, systems, technology and proven track record. We need to deal with flooding with extreme prejudice and bring in the big guns.

But we must first admit that we are all the cause of the problem. Yes, all of us contribute to the problem. Our love for concrete, paved roads and walkways that prevent water from penetrating into the ground, living wall-to-wall sucking up ground water, resistance to managing our garbage, sewage. Our ignorance or refusal to obey environmental management by dumping kitchen and construction slurry as well as chemicals into canals, etc. Our love for commercial mix-use spaces and malls built in former rice lands, wetlands and orchards. And yes, let’s include the greed that drives the reclamation of shorelines since the time of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

After confessing our sins against the environment, we need to put a peso value or monetize the country’s financial losses that is a direct result of flooding and the revenge of mother nature. We cannot be dismissive and treat floods as a momentary or seasonal inconvenience or disruption. Floods kill people, destroy homes, farms, properties and livestock. Floods disrupt regional or national productivity, along with food security and commerce.

We never used to think hard about the impact of traffic in Metro Manila until global banks and organizations such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency said that traffic costs the Philippines P3.5 billion in lost opportunities daily. It will probably shock all of us to know how much money is lost directly from floods. Learning the cost will in turn make us better appreciate the amount needed or the required expense for instituting a long-term, systematic approach to flood control and water management for the Philippines.

And now the most important part of it all: Let’s call the world’s leading experts when it comes to creating systems that allows an entire nation to exist amid water all around, an advanced European nation that has mastered the science of managing flood controls, waterways and turned a natural disadvantage into a modern technology-based opportunity for transport, agriculture and environmental management: the Netherlands.

If you Google it, you will learn that one third or 30 percent of the Netherlands (more popularly called by Filipinos as “Holland”) is below sea level. But after decades upon decades, the Dutch people have cleverly created solutions, systems of managing waterways, dikes, even the sea and restored submerged lands and made many areas habitable, productive and profitable.

“To keep low-lying land free of water, they use dikes, which are walls that are built to keep water out. Along with the dikes, they use continuously operating pumps.” They designed waterways with enclosures and gates that move boats, barges and watercraft and you could see in some areas where the waterways are higher than the roads.

Flood and water management are very serious matters in the Netherlands, so much so that they have a ministry called the Rijkswaterstaat which is “responsible for the management of the major waters, such as the sea and the rivers,” alerting the national government in case of emergencies in times of possible floods and storm. The Ministry maintains dikes, dams, storm surge barriers and giving more room for rivers by deepening flood plains and constructing secondary channels.

If the Dutch allowed nature to take its course, half of the country would probably be gone. In fact, one of the triggers that fast tracked the Dutch commitment to flood control and water management was the result of a major storm in 1953 when a storm from the North Sea created a “Yolanda-like” storm surge and killed so many people and destroyed many homes, farms and properties.

Since then, the Netherlands has transformed from “victim” to “victor” by becoming one of if not the world’s foremost expert in managing water, floods, coastal tides and is committed to sharing their expertise with all countries that are perennially victims of flooding and storm surge – such as the Philippines.

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