Malabon slams DPWH for failing to meet Camanava flood project deadline anew

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Public Works and Highways again failed to meet its self-imposed Sept. 30 deadline for the completion of the multibillion-peso Camanava (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela) flood control project, a Malabon City official said yesterday.

City public information office chief Bong Padua said it would be “impossible” for the DPWH to finish today the P5.18-billion flood control project, considered as the ultimate solution to the worsening flood problem in Camanava.

“We are just fortunate for we haven’t encountered the worst storm yet or Malabon would again be submerged in flood waters,” Padua said.

He said that it seems the DPWH is “not in a hurry” to finish the project.

The STAR called yesterday engineer Macariola Bartolo, chief of the DPWH-Camanava Flood Control Project Management Office, but according to her staff she was at a meeting in Congress.

The Camanava flood control project was started in June 2003 and was supposed to be finished in June 2007. But more than three years had passed, the project remains under construction.

Mayor Canuto Oreta and the Malabon City Flood Control Advisory Council are closely monitoring the project’s developments.

Engineer Ruth Senaida, Malabon assistant city engineer and a member of the flood control advisory council technical committee, said at least three main components of the project – the Longos creek, Catmon main drainage, and the polder dike – are still under construction.

“Even if they (DPWH) would conduct a 24/7 full blast operation, they wouldn’t (beat) the deadline,” Senaida said.

In the first week of August, Bartolo said the project was already 98 percent complete and that she was confident that it would be finished on Sept. 30, the “final deadline.”