P128-billion flood mitigation plan for Cagayan Valley pushed

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya , Philippines  – The Regional Development Council (RDC) called on President Arroyo to revive a multibillion-peso flood mitigation project for Cagayan Valley amid the destruction brought by tropical storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng.”

Bayombong Bishop Ramon Villena, who chairs the RDC, said he would remind the President about the P128-billion comprehensive flood mitigation master plan for the region, which the council submitted to her in 2006 but was put on hold due to budgetary constraints.

“I will strongly endorse the project to the President. We will re-introduce the plan to her, especially in the light of the recent tragedies brought by the successive typhoons,” he said.

Villena, however, said a feasibility study should first be conducted to determine the project’s impact on the environment.

The President endorsed the master plan, which she described as probably the region’s biggest and most important project, to the RDC on Feb. 13, 2006. Former Batanes governor Vicente Gato then headed the council.

The master plan came up in the aftermath of flash floods due to successive typhoons that battered the region in 2006, leaving some P3 billion in agricultural losses and damage to infrastructure. 

Although the project was approved in principle, the President said then that it still needed further validation and study.

The master plan, Mrs. Arroyo said, should be able to identify the activities to be carried out in the short term and long term.

Purita Licas, regional director of the Philippine Information Agency, said she would also bring up the shelved project during the next RDC meeting.

“(It seems) nobody remembers the project as no one brought it up during the President’s visit (to Tuguegarao City last Oct. 10) for a briefing on the extent of damage caused by typhoon Pepeng,” she said.

The flood mitigation master plan, according to the RDC, covers both immediate and long-term projects, including the construction of small water impounding dams in critical areas of the region’s major rivers – the Magat River in Nueva Vizcaya, Pinacanauan River in Isabela, and the Cagayan River, the country’s longest river system, and their tributaries.

The plan, the RDC said then, needed an initial P250 million to implement the immediate and short-term activities.

Villena said the Japan Bank for International Cooperation offered to implement the project “but it (received some opposition) then.”

The master plan also includes the dredging of heavily silted rivers, construction of soil protection structures, massive tree planting, and rehabilitation of mountains, especially those near the banks of the region’s major rivers.

The region’s mainland provinces – Nueva Vizcaya, Isabela, Cagayan and Quirino – are traversed by at least 30 rivers, making them extremely vulnerable to flooding.