The Philippines had experienced its worst flooding in history courtesy of typhoon Ondoy. The experts said that the down pour last Saturday (26 September 2009) during the 8-hour of continuous rains was equivalent to the total average rainfall for one month. Places like Marikina City specifically Provident Village, the towns of Cainta and Taytay in Rizal Province were flooded with waters as high as the roof of houses with second floors. All the while I thought that driving through flooded streets in Lagro, Quezon City was already a nightmare but I realized it paled in comparison to what the household of my officemates had gone through: spending 12 hours in the second floor of their house in North Fairview SSS Employees Housing as the floodwaters reached the ceiling of their first floor and subsided only after 12 hours! By this time, I am sure you had read numerous testimonies about near death experiences during the flooding of Metro Manila or must have watched television video clips on the extend of the damage. I feel it is no longer necessary to write about it. I would rather write about the brighter side of this worst calamity: the lessons that I learned from the experience and I will attempt to provide answers to questions asking why the massive flooding happened.

1. God is good all the time. If I followed my original plan of going to the location in Pampanga using the Marilao entry to NLEX, I would have been swept away by the onslaught of rampaging floods that hit the area in the vicinity of Vitarich farm, a kilometer away from the Marilao entrance of NLEX. When I drove through the Marilao road the day after the typhoon, although the flood had subsided, the remnants of the debris mostly plastic bags used as garbage bags were hanging up the cyclone wire fence of the Vitarich. It was a proof that the floods reached as high as the roof of the cars! My last minute decision to take the Balintawak entrance was clearly God’s way delivering me from an apparent danger.

2. Solid Waste Disposal is a serious matter that must be addressed collectively by everybody. Water normally seeks its own level. As the rain pours, it flows down to the lower levels passing the drainage canals leading into the open sea. Typhoon Ondoy taught us not to clog the drainage canals with the rampant and uncontrolled dumping of all types of our solid wastes. To deliver his reminder in a very graphic way, with his heavy rainfall, he sent back us to us right in our doors all the plastic bags that clog the drainage as the water back flows and rises as high as the ceilings of our houses. The plastic bags were left hanging in our fences and lamp posts as the flood subsided. Surely, Ondoy will haunt us for the rest of our lives as the sight of ugly plastic bags hanging in our fences will continue to linger in the corners of our minds.

3. Forest denudation is a major culprit too. Antipolo City area in Rizal province is a major watershed area. In the 1970’s, It used to have a natural forest cover with trees having extensive root system capable of holding water from rainfall. Increasing population growth however forced the conversion of the large natural forest into subdivisions by developers that denuded the mountain slopes. For several years, as rain pours, water flows freely from the high areas of Antipolo into the natural catch basin – the low lying areas of Taytay, Cainta, Pasig and Marikina causing floods. Typhoon Ondoy taught us that the Antipolo forest denudation issue has already reached maximum levels as the low lying areas were inundated with water reaching the roof tops of houses. Again, to highlight his statement typhoon Ondoy see to it that the flooding linger for days, or may even extend for weeks to constantly remind us not to further destroy Antipolo watershed and to start a massive tree planting effort. If you are familiar with Marikina River, the flooding at the height of typhoon Ondoy reached the level as high as the parking area of the basement of SM City Marikina covering the Riverbanks on the opposite side with water at the rooftop level.

4. Constructing houses on the lakeshore of Laguna de Bay should be stopped. The massive denudation of the Antipolo watershed is compounded with the massive construction of houses along the lakeshore of the Laguna de Bay. Despite the presence of an agency called the Laguna Lake Development Authority which has the mandate of well, coordinating efforts of developing the lake, as a result of population pressure, people constructed houses along the lakeshore. Consequently, just like the ordinary garbage placed inside the popular plastic bags clogging the drainage canals, these houses prevent the normal flow of the water from the catch basin lake to the open sea of Manila Bay causing flooding in the municipalities surrounding the lake like San Pedro, Calamba, Los Banos, Sta. Cruz, Victoria, Mabitac in Laguna province. In this case, since there is only one outlet of the lake to drain to Manila Bay (Napindan Channel), typhoon Ondoy made the strongest statement: the flooding in these areas will have to stay till December or for 3 months! Suggestion to construct a by-pass channel from Laguna de Bay to the open sea of Manila Bay passing through Paranaque is expensive and could be a long-term solution to drain the swelling Laguna de Bay. For now, what is being done is the clearing of the Napindan Channel which is a tedious process otherwise we may have to let just let the natural evaporation process to the work of drying up the lakeshore! In a similar situation but in a micro level, the flooding of the North Fairview SSS Employee Housing is caused by the presence of illegal settlers along the Tullahan River. In the 1980’s, the area near the bridge of North Fairview used to be called Pechayan because it was a vegetable garden producing pechay. Today, it is a squatters colony with houses built on the fragile river banks and even under the bridge preventing the normal flow of water from the spillway of the nearly La Mesa Dam. Consequently, waters flowing along the Tullahan River had swollen and had flooded for the very first time the North Fairview SSS Employees Housing where most of my officemates live.

(to be concluded)