All under water

After Typhoon Carina sunk most of Metro Manila and several nearby regions, the common question asked by media and affected citizens was: “What happened to all the flood control projects and the billions of pesos spent in the last two decades?”

My answer, if I may be so bold: “They are all under water,” while more than half the money went to the pockets of politicians, local and national government officials and contractors and suppliers.

Almost every person I’ve talked to who has engaged or participated in these projects have shared how practically every government project that involved construction of flood control involves two kinds of mobilization.

The first one is to mobilize payoffs, or the 20 to 40 percent commission demanded at the LGU level and national agencies. Then comes the actual project-related mobilization for the project at hand. It seems that today’s 40 percent estimated payoff is a combination of local and national bribery.

After the payoffs are made, the contractors will now have to cut corners in terms of concrete-to-sand mixture or formulation, downsizing rebars or culverts (those round concrete 2- to 4-foot “pipes”). They downsize or shrink dimensions or specifications as well as ignore load bearing capacities or curing time.

As a result of all these cutting corners to compensate for budgets lost to corrupt politicians and officials, the end product can be 30 to 50 percent less or below the designed requirement. The projects are either smaller, narrower, shorter, lower or weaker.

So, the canals, waterways and the like won’t meet the need or solve the problem. But who cares, they are all underground anyway and now after several days of pouring rain they are all under water. As the saying goes: “Out of sight – out of mind.”

Hopefully, because of modern technology and facilities provided by groups like Project NOAH, the DOJ, the Office of the Ombudsman or courageous NGOs can use satellite images to pinpoint where flood controls failed, get volunteers to do engineering and qualitative studies and prove if those projects were “corrupted.”

Do we even need a special law and extra special punishment for people who corrupt and cheat the people on such vital projects? No. What we need is for the PBBM administration to make an example of a few individuals whose actions have led to loss of life, loss of homes or work. Punish them and make sure they never get to work in government or serve in an elected position.

But it’s not all about corruption per se. Even with all the flood control projects in place, we will still be flooded time and again for a variety of reasons. Everybody talks about urban development, but developers and government engineers are generally ignorant about engineering consequences.

I have seen several new circumferential or diversion roads or access roads that pass through new residential and commercial developments. These wide roads are nice to look at when new but turn into corridors of floods amid torrential rains.

Try to imagine how much rainwater can be collected with a concrete road that is six lanes wide and stretches several kilometers long, all headed towards the lowest point of a town, village or barangay? People I know were so happy for the new “short cut” until a week’s worth of rain poured and sunk the barangay next door, sinking cars, killing farm animals and trapping residents who never ever saw floodwaters in the last 20 years.

It’s like having a batya or basin and then pouring all the water into a funnel or embudo. The six-lane road collects more water than the culvert can receive and deliver.

In Batangas and Quezon provinces alone, there have been at least half a dozen to a dozen of this kind of major diversion roads that have been built in the last 10 years and little or no attention was given to surface disruption and potential buildup of water.

Contractors focus on the roads. The canals and waterways are a totally different project and not their concern. This indifference or what my Dad Louie Beltran called “Donker Mentality” (a combination of people who “don’t care” and act like donkeys) is also manifest among politicians and government officials.

They don’t care or worry much about flooding and floodwaters because they view floods as a seasonal, short term, temporary discomfort. It is no skin off their back because all the money spent for relief goods and financial assistance comes from the peoples’ hard-earned money and not the questionable wealth of professional politicians.

Like a curse, floods create disasters and disasters make politicians indispensable and relevant for poor people. The long history of switching donated relief goods and repacking them in bags bearing the name and image of politicians is irrefutable evidence of the predatory character of politicians who shamelessly benefit from the misery of the most miserable!

Perhaps this is what needs looking into. Make flood control and flood prevention a local government responsibility and direct accountability.

Make it the responsibility of elected LGU officials to monitor, investigate, report and request the DPWH, etc. to act on a specific flooding concern until it is addressed. If the LGU fails to do so, then make it a basis for their suspension or removal from office. Make them solve the problem instead of turning the problem into a tool for political popularity.

By doing this, I’m confident LGUs will be stricter on littering, garbage disposal, stricter on project dimensions and qualities, etc., because they would rather protect their position and influence than get a commission.

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