When irrigation engineers love cockfights

NEWS about landslides and extensive flooding gives a lot of us a good reason to condemn habagat (southwest monsoon) when it visits our land in July, August, and September. All of the ASEAN region and India, like us, depend on habagat to let irrigation canals flow. Without this dependable monsoon rain, most farmers and their families would starve. The government’s irrigation system can benefit only the lowland farmers but ricefields some four to five meters above sea level cannot be fed by irrigation canals.

Thick silt Most irrigation canals are heavily silted and in small provinces like Antique (my home province), the national irrigation officials are found only in cockpits, according to reports. They force their employees to spend more time taking “good” care of their gamecocks. In my province, irrigation canals built some 30 to 40 years before 2015 deliver less than one-half of the intended volume of water.

Good workers and shovels

If the original canal was properly measured at 4m wide and 2m deep, it is now made shallow by silt and delivers less than 50 percent water to the lowland farms. Desilting canals is the easiest work. The irrigation engineer (if he is not in the cockpit) needs only temporary workers and new shovels. Antique irrigation for farms in three towns – Sibalom, San Jose de Buenavista (the capital), and Hamtic – has not been improved, desilted, or developed for many years. The irrigation engineers are either in Manila, Iloilo, or in the cockpit, doing work that farmers cannot properly describe.

Their tall boast If most irrigation officials prefer to live in cockpits, the only result is leading to a tall boast that sufficiency in rice production is still “possible.” Which means that our irrigation engineers, without doing anything or by staying longer in cockpits, can force the government to import more and more rice from Vietnam, Thailand, and China.

Habagat still prevails With habagat giving farmers the right amount of water, the government should now start reorganizing our national irrigation office by employing honest college graduates who can easily supervise desilting canals by temporary workers armed with new and strong shovels.

Farmers’ grievances The poor farmers cannot reach most responsible irrigation officials with their grievances. Farmers don’t write angry letters to the Ombudsman or to the National Irrigation Administrator. They are at the mercy of irrigation officials/engineers assigned in the provinces who cannot stay in their offices daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They shout orders here and there that have no connection with irrigation’s very purpose – to HELP farmers.

After land reform was fully implemented, only small farmers working on two to seven hectares are left in the field, always waiting for water that cannot flow efficiently in heavily silted canals.

More fun away from farms

NIA engineers should go out and ask our farmers about irrigation efficiency or lack of it and start solving problems there in the field with their shiny SUVS that are often seen near cockpits and places of questionable repute.

When engineers cannot lead in desilting canals, as simple as sweeping yards at home, what more can they offer to help farmers. College graduates without a diploma in civil engineering can do more to help our poor farmers. Or NIA should reduce the number of engineers to employ. Making canals deeper than one meter does not need an engineer. We only need good, efficient, and honest workers to solve this problem.

Farmers help themselves

Can NIA engineers help farmers to prosper? In my province the farmers help themselves with what they can afford – like buying water pumps with loans from “5/6 bankers.” (Comments are welcome at roming@pefianco.com).