These Sasmuan island villages are sinking!

SASMUAN, Pampanga — What do you do when the ground beneath your feet is sinking - literally?

This is the problem facing 25,000 residents of five island-barangays in this fifth-class municipality, their land being eroded into the sea and sinking at, what authorities believe, such an alarming rate.

"It’s a serious problem. For the island residents, their homes are all they have and they have nowhere else to go," said Sasmuan Mayor Catalina Bagasina.

The five barangays are Batang I and II, Mabuanbuan, Sebitanan and Malusac.

Dr. Fernando Siringan of the National Institute of Geological Sciences said he, too, is alarmed by the rate at which coastal areas in Pampanga, particularly Sasmuan, are sinking.

On the average, Sasmuan has been sinking at a rate of two to four centimeters yearly, or about a meter in 20 years, as shown in a study Siringan’s team has been conducting in the past years.

Many parts of Sasmuan, according to Bagasina, are, in fact, only a meter above sea level.

Worst-hit by erosion, she said, is the village of Mabuanbuan whose 5,000 residents, in their frantic attempt to save their island, are using bamboo poles and fishnets as breakwater.

"But the rate of erosion has remained unabated," she lamented.

Bagasina has appealed to the Department of Public Works and Highways to help reclaim lost land by dumping materials it has dredged from the silted Guagua-Pasac River and from the site of the P1-billion "third river" project.

The "third river" project aims to link up waterways unreached by Mt. Pinatubo’s lahar debris and create a new channel to drain floodwaters during the rainy season.

Bagasina, however, believes that constructing a concrete breakwater around the five island-barangays is more effective.

Funding though for such an endeavor is a big problem. "Ours is just a fifth-class town where most people survive on small-scale fishing," she said.

Siringan has urged officials of affected areas to re-evaluate their land use plans, including the conversion of ricelands into fishponds.