CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — With Mt.Pinatubo so far still spared from climate change-magnitude weather similar to devastating Typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda, experts from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have assured local folk that some P928-million worth of projects already finished in their area would be enough to protect them even from severest typhoons.
“I think that the anti- lahar megadike will hold even if Mt. Pinatubo and the Pasig-Potrero River are hit by a typhoon similar to Ondoy,” said engineer Lita Manalo, chief of the DPWH’s Mt. Pinatubo Emergency- Project Management Office (MPR-PMO) during an interview with Punto!.
She was referring to the U-shaped dike initially built during the Ramos administration to serve as catch basin for lahar from Mt. Pinatubo flowing through the Pasig-Potrero River. The dike, which Manalo said is estimated to now cost some P3.5 billion including cost of maintenance and repair, has served to prevent lahar flows from burying the capital city of San Fernando and several other towns in Pampanga.
The dike now holds tons of lahar materials whose level is above the grounds of surrounding communities. In a briefing during a forum held here over the weekend by the Provincial Risk Reduction and Disaster Management Council (PDRRMC) and Office of Civil Defense (OCD), another DPWH resource person, engineer William Bustos said that “in a scale of one to ten, the safety of San Fernando could be ranked 10.”
Manalo, who has been involved in anti-lahar projects since Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991, said her office has recently completed several anti-flooding and other related projects worth P928 million in areas around Mt. Pinatubo, as well as in channels that are supposed to allow the flow of flooding to the Manila Bay.
The projects, she said, are under the DPWH’s “Pinatubo hazard urgent mitigation projects.” During her briefing, she identified the biggest of these projects as the Spillway 3 in Bacolor, Pampanga, which was finished last July at the cost of P270 million and the Spillway 3, completed last March also in Bacolor, which was designed to protect the so-called tail dike in the area of San Fernando, Sto. Tomas and Minalin towns.
The other completed projects were mostly repair and maintenance of existing anti-flooding and lahar structures.
Manalo also said that three other projects, worth P91.4 million, are to be finished next year, including one designed to curb fl ooding threat in Sto. Tomas and San Narciso in Zambales at the cost of P46.3 million.
