ATAYDE SEEKS ‘FLOODING CZAR’
QUEZON City First District Rep. Juan Carlos “Arjo” Atayde on Tuesday encouraged the government to make flood control measures a top priority and to appoint a flood czar to oversee the administration and execution of flood control programs, since paralyzing floods are becoming more frequent in Metro Manila.
Atayde said that because the House “had delayed work in the past due to widespread flooding in the metro,” lawmakers “are intimately familiar with this problem.”
“By designating a ‘flooding czar’ in the Cabinet, someone will be primarily responsible for ensuring proper coordination between the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Metropolitan
Development Authority, and the National Capital Region’s various local governments with regard to flood control projects,” he said.
The lawmaker said that one of the government’s priorities should be to advance the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank-funded Metro Manila Flood Management Project, which, although mandated in 2017, appears to be experiencing delays based on project indicators.
As of Oct. 31, 2021, just one of the 36 pumping stations that required rehabilitation had been completed. Moreover, the project aims to build 20 additional pumping stations by the end of November 2024, with none finished as of the end of October 2021.
Atayde requested that the Department of Public Works and Highways provide funding so that a study may be carried out to assess the viability of potential solutions to the flooding issue.
This includes relocating informal settlers where retarding ponds will be built, building high-rise walls and pumping stations at the San Juan River, evaluating the master plan for flood control, and building retarding ponds in malls, basketball courts, playgrounds, parks, and other open spaces and box culverts underneath the roads.
Several barangay (villages) in Atayde’s district — Mariblo, Sto. Domingo, Talayan, Bungad, San Antonio, Katipunan, Damayan and Del Monte — experienced flash floods as a result of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall.
“Many roads in my district were impassable, which made it impossible for families to go out and buy food and other basic necessities,” he said.
“The damage caused by floods in the whole country, not just Metro Manila, is substantial,” he added.
According to the GHD group’s research, “Aquanomics: The Economics of Water Risk and Future Resilience,” flooding and tropical storm damage to the country between 2022 and 2050 might cost $89 billion.
“At the current exchange rate, that is equivalent to P5.1 trillion,” Atayde said.