Unconscionable antiflooding solution amid poverty

This is in response to the letter titled “Marikina River not suited to bamboo defense” (Opinion, 4/19/17) of Elizabeth P. Pilorin, Stakeholder Relations Officer of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

1) I would like to thank her for acknowledging the fact that bamboos can be planted on riverbanks—in both urban and rural areas. As I said in my Feb. 8 letter (“Nature as solution to ‘river issues,” Opinion), Las Piñas-Zapote River has proven that bamboos thrive and are an effective anti-erosion agent. Las Piñas-Zapote River is in a much highly urbanized area than the one where Marikina River is.

The undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and engineers of the DPWH should go on a field trip to see Las Pinas-Zapote River.

2) Pilorin said that cementing is required to keep a river within its watercourse and prevent it from overflowing. With bamboos, the river’s water-holding capacity is enhanced as bamboo roots can hold much water. The banks can also be stabilized by coconet, vetiver and bamboos.

3) Our country has many problems—poverty, malnutrition, stunting (very low weight of kids), global warming with economic repercussion being felt by farmers, etc. Spending too much on antiflooding measures is unconscionable in the face of poverty. One-fourth of Filipinos are within the poverty line. If there are other cheaper means, why don’t we avail ourselves of them?

4) The DPWH has been shown to have a propensity for spending unnecessarily. A lot of perfectly asphalted roads are being removed (gasp!) and replaced with cement: Officials of the Commission on Audit and the Office of the Ombudsman should make an ocular inspection of a stretch of Quirino Highway in Lagro, Caloocan, on which the DPWH has been working for close to a year now. (This is in the area of Sacred Heart Village, Dela Costa Homes II, Guadanoville Homes.) Include the Balagtas-Pandi Road and a municipal road in Barangay Bulihan, Plaridel, Bulacan.

Instead of “repairing,” with cement, asphalted roads that are in good condition, the DPWH should offer—to the National Housing Authority—that it just be the one to provide and pour the cement in all socialized housing projects.

5) There’s a piece on the internet that says the DPWH, in 2012, tested the coconet on the eroded slopes along Benguet-Nueva Vizcaya Road in Bokod, Benguet. This even made former secretary Rogelio Singson quip that he wanted this replicated all over the Philippines. The cost of the coconet is P900/square meter. The article described it as a cheap anti-erosion agent. This just shows that if the DPWH wants cheap and better alternatives, it can avail itself of many.

CHESTER CHANG, ches_chang@yahoo.com