Maguindanao to buy P100M dredger

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines  --- The provincial government is set to procure a P100-million worth dredger to unclog heavily silted rivers in towns that perennially get flooded whenever rains cause the waterways to over flow and inundate hundreds of riverside villages.

More than a dozen towns in Maguindanao are flooded now after last week’s heavy rains, dislocating more than 20,000 Moro families.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose office has been distributing relief supplies to flood victims since Thursday, said he has requested the incoming provincial vice-governor, Lester Sinsuat to immediately pass a resolution allowing the purchase of a modern dredger.

Mangudadatu told reporters that he had asked, but failed to secure one from now outgoing Vice Gov. Dustin Mastura, whose post will be taken over on June 30 by Sinsuat.

Sinsuat was Mangudadatu’s running mate during the May 13 polls.

“I’ve been assured by the incoming Vice-Gov. Sinsuat and the newly-elected members of the provincial board that they will focus attention on such concern,” Mangudadatu said.

Mangudadatu said the dredger his office intend to purchase could be around P100 million.

“We are in dire need of that dredger,” he said.

The dredger shall be used to remove silt and soil debris clogging the tributaries of the Rio Grande de Mindanao and Allah River that both straddles through several towns in the province before draining into the Moro Gulf at the west coast of Cotabato City.

Cotabato City has also been perennially flooded, being the geographical basin of  Maguindanao’s upper delta, or “Raya” area in the  vernacular.

The Rio Grande de Mindanao, which springs from hinterland watersheds in Bukidnon, North Cotabato and the Agusan area, traverses the Liguasan Marsh and several towns in Central Mindanao before flowing downstream into the Moro Gulf thourgh a channel along Cotabato City.

“If we can dredge these rivers cutting through Maguindanao, we shall also be helping minimize these perennial floods in Cotabato City,” Mangudadatu said.

Cotabato City is in Maguindanao, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, but is administratively under Region 12.

The big rivers that need to be dredged are major shipping routes during the Spanish era, which the Spaniards navigated with their sailboats that ferried traders from the Bucana area in Cotabato City to what are now chartered riverside municipalities in North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

Tugboats towing logs from forests in the Raya area of the province were seen navigating through the same waterways until the early 1960s.  John Unson