ANL September
2012 Issue
E D
I T O
R I A L
Dams for flood control,
anyone?
The provincial government of Pangasinan and the
management of the mammoth San Roque Dam—built at San Manuel town in the densely
populated province—have had a bickering in the aftermath of the successive onslaughts
by cyclones “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” late September to early October 2009 flooding
Metro-Manila, central and northern Luzon spawned by typhoon rains.
Pangasinan governor Amado Espino berated a
dam engineer in an ensuing press conference when the latter could not fully
expound on any official policy or procedure on timely releases of excess
rainwater from the dam. The two parties later agreed on a protocol for a proper early warning system on
water releases from the dam; and to foster closer coordination between them on
the critical problem of flooding caused by undue releases of dam water during
stormy days.
Exactly three years this September 2012, what
did Pangasinenses got? At the height of
incessant monsoon rains (“habagat”)
last month, 5-9 August, Governor Espino announced plans to sue dam operator
National Power Corporation to compel the shutdown of the huge reservoir for
apparently forgetting and/or ignoring
whatever was agreed upon in the aftermath of the tragic and costly “Ondoy-Pepeng” deluge spawned by spilled
dam waters from San Roque.
Ironic as it is, flood control is said to be
one of the “many uses” of San Roque Dam. But wherever province a dam is located,
people—including Metro-Manilans—are on the uproar fearing and protesting the
devastations caused by untimely and/or undue and improper releases of dam
waters during danger periods of typhoons and monsoon rains as big and tragic as
this year’s and 2009’s. We got damned by spilled dam waters costing precious lives,
limbs and properties. anl
. sep2012
N E W S L I N E
Tayug-Asingan
dike ripped off!
By: Engr.
Joe L. Sevilla . ANL Asingan Correspondent
The
huge non-cemented Agno River dike at Barangay
Sta. Ana-Tayug near the tri-boundary of
Tayug-San Manuel-Asingan towns in eastern Pangasinan province was nearly ripped off by erosion caused by
rampaging waters released from San Roque Dam in the wake of a weeklong monsoon
rains early last month, August. Part of
the same dike at Barangay Carmen in Rosales town was torn off September 2009 by
torrent floodwaters at the height of typhoon “Pepeng” swamping the floors
of the sprawling SM City-Rosales rendering
most parts of the province underwater for days.
Residents
around the area express fears on another onslaught of monsoon flood totally breaching the dike posing grave danger
of submerging and washing out wide areas east from San Manuel town to Asingan, Binalonan,
Villasis, Urdaneta City, Sta. Barbara, Manaoag, and far west to flood-prone
Dagupan City—all in the northern bank of the Agno River basin that slices
Pangasinan into halves east-to-west in a lengthwise fashion.
Pangasinan
lands with the top five provinces of the country in terms of land area, of income
and population size with over two million people. It has remaining forests at
its Caraballo mountain range arching north-to-east of the province. It has the
rich and historic Lingayen Gulf. It owns the largest cattle market in the country
situated at Urdaneta City. It has the iconic Manaoag Church serving both as
religious spot and tourist attraction. It is one of the top three rice granary
and vegetable producing provinces in the Philippines.
It
houses the giant San Roque Dam—one of the 20 biggest in the world—built at
Barangay San Roque in the municipality of San Manuel. It has the Agno River
Basin—one of the three largest in the country—that is both a fishing ground and
sand-and-gravel source at summer time;
and a source of irrigation before the typhoons come.
The province is home to the
famous sea salt and bagoong industry and the equally popular “Dagupan bangus” [milkfish] grown in Bolinao,
Lingayen and Dagupan. It has fine and famous beaches in San Fabian and in the
island-town of Anda. And, finally, it prides having the famous and scenic Hundred Islands punctuating the riches and grandeur of the
province.
Pangasinan
province has two abandoned
small-to-medium airstrips [airports]—one in the capital town Lingayen
and the other at Brgy. Carmen in Rosales town. An annual festivity unique to
Pangasinenses along the seashores of Lingayen Gulf called “Pista’y Dayat” [Feast of
the Sea] is held on Labor Day, or every May 1 of the year. Simultaneously
holding this historic event are townspeople of about ten seaside municipalities
in the Gulf area.
With
the “wealth of wonder” that Pangasinan has, the entire province could not afford
bearing the yearly damages that typhoons and flooding inflict on the
hardworking Pangasinense. Floodwaters from Ambuklao and Binga dams up north in the
Cordilleras and from nearby San Roque
Dam spilled into the Agno River basin on
stormy days not only destroy crops and properties but eats up as well hundreds
of hectares of productive lands eroded yearly. This is inimical to a
sustainable future that the province is envisioning for its people. anl . sep2012
P U N C H L I N E
A Commentary: Dams
of damnation!
By: Rowena
Agaton-Balino . Photo/Lay-out Artist, ANL
Dam
proponents
are quick to put forward vested interests over and above anyone’s, not even the
people’s. Government, big business and contractors collude and agree on the
use-value of a project jaded from public scrutiny while the big bucks change
hands. And that’s a mere icing on the
cake!
In the
wake of so much grumblings and debates on disastrous flooding attributed to
ineptly managed dams all over the country, Asingan
NewsLine focuses eye on the intents and results in
having these structures even as dam seekers urge building more as if these were
cash vaults.
For an
objective look at the issue on the dams which proliferate more in Luzon, the
northernmost island and the largest in the country, we took hints from the
outrage of Gov. Amado Espino of Pangasinan against these dams that batter his turf
with floodwaters virtually every year.
Pangasinan
province sits in an enviable location endowed with the various ecosystems vital
for a vigorous economy. Caraballo mountain range stretches north to east on its
borders with five adjoining provinces. Lingayen Gulf is Pangasinan’s
territorial waters. The province possesses vast agricultural plains, salt farms
and fishery areas, and fine beaches along the Gulf. Agno River basin winds up
within the province serving as fishing and gold panning ground, sand-and-gravel
source and irrigation supply. Pangasinan’s pride and fascinating Hundred
Islands were scattered well within Lingayen Gulf. And, for all purpose and
intent, the gigantic San Roque Dam is built on Pangasinan soil at Barangay San
Roque in San Manuel town. Sadly though, these riches are now critically
compromised by both natural and man-made calamities.
“Dams were rammed through our throat,” said an
angry old woman refugee-victim whom we talked to at Barangay Tatalon, Quezon
City in the wake of the September 2009 deluge spawned by cylone “Ondoy” submerging Metro-Manila. Peoples’ ire rose high when all
five dams both in nearby Bulacan and Rizal provinces released so much dam waters
without due notices or early warning.
Back at
Governor Espino’s turf Pangasinan, the province was one of the hardest hit by
the equally harsh cyclone “Pepeng” that follows “Ondoy” a few days later. Housing one of the world’s biggest
dams, San Roque, the province was submerged in floodwaters when the huge dam
opened spillways without prior notice or warning. A portion of the Agno River
dike at Barangay Carmen in Rosales town
was breached by overflowing floodwaters swamping most parts of the province.
That time,
Espino castigated dam management for ineptness. August this year when monsoon
rains [“habagat”] battered Luzon in days, the ordeal was repeated and this time
the governor is suing dam operator National Power Corporation for the total
shutdown of San Roque. Posted on facebook by one Roger Birosel, he says: “The dams are damning our lives more often
than not!”
The
government’s National Power Corporation claims otherwise saying a DAM is
intended for POWER
SUPPLY,
IRRIGATION and FLOOD
CONTROL.
The intention on paper was good but flaws rear an ugly head from the very
start. Dam projects were never a subject of public consultation much less a
consensus of the very communities being displaced upon construction and the
affected public thereafter.
People have
learned from decades of heart-rending experiences. Case in point is the
Ambuklao-Binga-San Roque chain of dams in that order. The first two lies north
and central Benguet province. Down south just across the provincial boundary
with Pangasinan is San Roque. On stormy days, these dams normally releases
excess water all at the same time causing excessive flooding down the plains of
Pangasinan and Tarlac provinces effectively negating the “FLOOD
CONTROL”
clause.
The “IRRIGATION” clause
does not apply at all in the case of Ambuklao and Binga dams as these were
built up there on the ridges of the Cordillera mountains where there are no adjoining agricultural plains. The San Roque
master plan shows an 80-20 power-irrigation percentage ratio. Interestingly,
the small cemented irrigation canals were there laid out unfinished and far
from operational even after over a decade of dam operation.
In all
actuality, these dams cater largely to the needs of big business for power
supply and the wellbeing of the people only secondary. The dams around
Metro-Manila are a menace to peoples’ safety. Dams are supposedly being watched
in a 24-hour basis yet these are ambiguously mismanaged at critical times.
These dams have eroded hectares upon hectares of productive lands every stormy
season in decades past.
Asingan NewsLine is not anti-dam. It recognizes hydroelectric
dams are clean sources of energy. Sources like solar panels and windmills are feasible
and safe as well. Natural gas is rising in use and importance but so does its
cost. While we see government settles for the dams, it seems less intent on supplementing
the dams with other clean and renewable source of power. We see, too, a
government more adept at politicking than good governance and sustainable
development. anl .
sep2012
F E A T U R E
FLOODING: Root causes and Remedies
By:
Ruben
M. Balino, Editor-In-Chief, ANL
MSF, Environmental Science
My co-forester and
environmentalist wife says she used to frolic in the rains with co-toddlers in
a neighborhood in Malate, Manila where she was born. She recalls, thus: “The
old metropolis that came to be known as Metro-Manila was relatively green in
the mid-sixties with trees and grasses in most parts. The rain was cool and
fresh sans the acid from pollutant greenhouse gases floating and dulling the
atmosphere. Flooding was a rare occurrence then and if ever it did happen it is
more of the ankle-deep rainfall record for the year rather than waters
cascading down from somewhere else overland.”
As years wear on flooding rose up to
critical levels where toddlers eventually lost both freedom and safety to wade the
likes of today’s nose-deep and polluted killer floodwaters. The ordinary man in
the street was wondering what really are
the root causes of these floods? If and when, how could these be remedied?
People and their own government as
major stakeholders must realize that the problem on flooding is exacerbated by
both natural and man-made causes. Rainfall is but natural although the
phenomenon called “regime of extremes”—that is, “La Nina” or “excessive
rainfall” during wet season on the one hand; and “El Nino” or “prolonged
drought” at summer days on the other—points to man’s action as one of the main
culprits in heating up the globe’s temperature resulting to such adverse climatic
regimes. Man polluted his entire surroundings and continues decimating what is
left of the globe’s flora [plant
cover] and fauna [animal population].
Land use conversion has only man to blame
on his decisions of tearing down and converting an intact ecosystem into yet
another less sustainable use like golf courses and exclusive subdivisions on
rolling hills and steeply elevated areas. Man continues manufacturing and using
harmful chemicals and warfare materiel inimical to the environment and to man’s
safety himself. Nuclear plants and gigantic dams like San Roque sitting near ”digdig fault” [an earthquake line] 22
kilometers northeast on its boundary with Nueva Vizcaya province is inviting
danger with catastrophic proportion.
Unplanned, careless and rampant urbanization widening the
so-called cemented “urban jungle” are man’s suicidal acts preventing rainwater
from sinking down into the aquifers. Waste and garbage thrown around by a
largely insensitive and undisciplined population clog waterways while portion
of which finds way to seashores and ocean beds. Old, obsolete and inadequate
drainage systems in urban centers can hardly contain and dispose off excess rainfall.
Still, others with superficial knowledge
on and analysis of the problem readily point at population boom and the
increasing number of informal settlers in urban areas as major players in
the problem of yearly flooding and
erosion while government fails poorly in nailing down destructive big loggers,
miners and illegal poachers in which case laxity and corruption in law
enforcement crop up as a major aggravating factor as well.
The extent of damages flooding have
caused on people in both urban and rural areas are becoming more risky, costly
and unbearable. Aside from human and animal lives, crops and properties
sacrificed, flooding eats up hectares of lands eroded yearly; infrastructures like
huge dikes, roads, bridges and power lines breached or destroyed. Untold
sufferings command no less than unswerving commitment at providing lasting
remedies to mitigate such monumental damages.
Deforestation of the country’s
remaining forests and watershed areas must be put to a stop. Rehabilitate or
reforest denuded areas. Individuals, families and civil society groups,
government employees and the private sector should plant trees in every
plausible space—along roads, riverbanks
and farm perimeters; backyards, school grounds, churchyards, graveyards
and plazas; spaces in subdivisions and commercial districts; rooftop forestation
and gardening.
Alongside this serious effort at countrywide
tree planting must go with it a no-nonsense education campaign to imbibe
community discipline and environmental awareness, cooperation and volunteerism.
A Filipino migrant-friend in Switzerland says that rivers and waterways in
Europe are not littered with wastes and garbage despite people and families
residing along these water bodies. Good and effective law enforcement, she emphasizes,
springs from a sincere and honest governance.
The very positive virtues on
volunteerism, cooperation and discipline were molded by serious
education, value formation and awareness building, she clarifies. And, of
course, love of country, she hastens to add.
Some advocates suggest the building
of the more manageable and less costly mini-hydroelectric plants wherever
possible rather than the huge and dangerous type of dams less affordable for
the country to build and manage. And as the horizons for both science and
technology widen, other countries are showing the way at supplementing hydropower
with solar and windmill technologies.
And why can’t the Philippines?
Or why can’t government rehabilitate
old and obsolete drainage system and build new ones to cover the entire
metropolis. Flooding costs on lives, properties and infrastructures far exceed
the costs of any rehabilitation and modernization projects of these types. Pork
barrels for all three branches of government—the executive, legislative and
judiciary—worth hundreds of billions each annually are more than enough to
deliver this country from rags to progress.
Regulating the seeming anarchy in
land conversion and urbanization, and instituting a sustainable formula for
both urban and rural community planning are primarily the tasks of government. Insincere,
corrupt and inefficient governance only spells calamity, or more of it coming! anl . sep2012
L I
T E R
A R Y
“Thoughts
Parade”
a. ML@40:
Never Again!
Martial
Law, imposed
by virtue of Presidential Proclamation
1081 signed September 21, 1972 but was declared in the dead of night the
following day by then Philippine President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos who himself
is the very architect of the infamous rule, shocked and catapulted the country
into despotism, corruption and poverty.
Pandemonium
broke loose as warrantless raids and arrests were done round-the-clock in every
nook and cranny the police and military could lay their hands on. Enforced “sona”, or village-to-village search,
made people to form long queues on streets and searched for IDs and cedulas,
arrested men sporting long hairs and tattoos, and senseless lots.
Target personalities were hauled to jail except for the vigilant youth leaders
who with their flock conveniently “seek comfort” among the masses in the
countryside.
On the pretext
of wanting to “effectively eliminate the communist threat” and reign in what he
calls then as “anarchy and criminality in the streets”; “reform society and
build a new one to improve the lots of the Filipino people”, Marcos built a
conjugal dictatorship at the expense of genuine freedom and democracy. Himself
a suspect of murdering his father’s political foe Julio Nalundasan, Ferdinand
was discreet in his vile scheme at eliminating his own political foes who were
about to supplant him from power had he not imposed martial rule.
Aside from
usurping freedom and democracy, martial rule did have immeasurable blood debts
and sorrows inflicted on innocent people—all of about 12 thousand arrested and
incarcerated, tortured, raped, murdered, and forcibly disappeared—that until
now in 40 years are never indemnified and/or rendered justice. Millions more
were victims of martial law’s harshest anti-insurgency campaigns in terms of
displaced population due to forced evacuations, hamleting, indiscriminate bombings,
crossfire, arson, harassments, robbery, and other criminal atrocities against the
people.
The Marcos
dictatorship obnoxiously built a cabal of moronic and fascist police and
military generals and a throng of parasitic cronies and technocrats fed with
people’s tax and foreign debts. It laid out a mantle of power clothed in legal
jargon as “constitutional authoritarianism” odiously governed by general orders [GOs] and
presidential decrees [PDs].
Marcos’
wife and alter ego, Imelda Romualdez, was herself the “imeldific” monster molded
by martial rule turned rabid evangelist of the culture of lavishness, greed and
extravagance in a banana republic she and her dictator husband shamelessly
built.
Equally worse
was Marcos crafting an import dependent and debt oriented economy that put the
country into mendicancy at the hands of syndicated international usurers like
the IMF-World Bank.
Martial
Law was a war that devoured its own children
and people, most painful of all—the brightest and the bravest. Some says that
it’s better for the dead in that they were mourned and carried to their graves while
it is an infinite torture imagining of the disappeared where could their bodies
been thrown away and eaten by the elements.
And yes,
it’s equally horrible thinking of martial law@40 while the
perpetrators of such a heinous reign of greed and terror were back here remaining
scot-free and virtually swaggering in power as before…Never
again!
By:
Ruben “Ka Bencio”
Balino [One of six core-convener of the now famous
League of Filipino Students representing GAUF (DLSAU). The others were: Susan
Deborja of UP; Mark Rosales of Adamson
U; Sonny Ramirez of UE; Vic Pacia of FEATI; Diony
Doronio of MLQU].
Note: The following images were sent by
our Alumni Correspondents abroad, namely: 1.
Rudy D. Antonio of Vancouver, Canada. 2. Engr. Silver
M. Casilla & RN Merly
Grospe-Mayo of USA. 3. Ronilo R. Corpuz of Vienna, Austria. 4. Fely
Dumaguing-Malgapo of Milan, Italy.
b.
SS
S
c.
d.
e. where to? to?
f. The "BALANGIGA MASSACRE" of 1901. Exactly 111 years ago this September 28, 2012, the people of
Balangiga town in Samar island of the
Visayas commemorates what is now known as “Balangiga
Massacre”
in two notes, e.g., in glory and
pride at the bravery of their forebears in
boldly resisting foreign occupation and
oppression by attacking the garrison of U.S. occupation forces at the town
center killing 48 soldiers; in terror and hatred at the genocidal retaliatory
attacks by the Americans by ordering “kill all people aged 10 and above and burn
Samar and make it a howling wilderness.”
In retrospect, this sad
note on the Philippine-American war resulted in the killing of mostly unarmed
Filipino civilians estimated by U.S. historian Kenneth Ray Young to
more than 50,000 in just a few
months. This number far exceeds the 3,000 casualties in the so-called “9/11 terrorist attack” and approximates the 60,000 immediate casualties in
the U.S. atomic attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945.
In the back of our minds, there
are a lot more to count. Now in the millions were killed in Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and in many more places where the “real and mighty terrorist”
sets foot. –By: Ross “Ticong” Diaz
E d
i t o
r i a
l B o
a r d
MEMBERS:
Rudy D. Antonio [Canada Correspondent]; Engr. Silver
Casilla & RN Merly Grospe-Mayo [U.S. Correspondents]; Ronilo R.
Corpuz [Vienna Correspondent]; Fely Dumaguing-Malgapo [Milan Correspondent]; Engr. Joe
L. Sevilla [Asingan Correspondent]; Col. Lalin Layos-Pascual; Ross C. Diaz; Engr. Lorie
dG. Estrada; CPA Rod A. Layco; Wena Agaton-Balino [Photo & Lay-out Artist]; Ruben “Bencio” Balino [ Editor-In-Chief].
In and around Southeast
Asia, China continue escalating its bullying tactics against its smaller
neighbors including the Philippines and five other claimants by audaciously
claiming the entire South China Sea and all the islands thereat solely as its
own which the bully have not pronounced so at any point in the past. New
printed passports issued to its citizens were designed with a map that includes
the totality of the contested area indicating ownership of the same. A separate
but similar island ownership dispute with Japan is heating up towards yearend with
China displaying equally undeterred arrogance.
