Calumpit folk decry wasted funds for failed flood control projects
CALUMPIT, BULACAN—Danilo Marin, the village chief of Bulusan in Calumpit, said his community was outraged after learning that the “sloppy” river dike project that never controlled the flooding and continued to cause misery in their barangay had cost billions of pesos of the people’s money.
Acceptance required
“The billions of government funds was just wasted. No floods were controlled,” he told the Inquirer on Saturday, a day after his village was visited by President Marcos who was dismayed at the sight of the crumbling concrete river barrier.
According to Marin, in the eight years that he has been village chief, not once had the barangay government been involved in such a big project because the “acceptance policy” then required from contractors was ignored.
“We are supposed to sign or accept the project. But not a (single) construction firm had asked me to do so,” he said.
Under this policy, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) supposedly will not sign off on a project if is not accepted by the barangay and if there are defects, Marin said.
“I did not experience the acceptance policy,” he said, adding that other barangay chiefs also said the same thing.
In a 2024 department order, the DPWH revised the guidelines on the issuance of a certificate of completion (COC), and certificate of final acceptance (CFA), which, among others, required the “compliance by contractors with the approved plans and specifications.”
The new rules were supposed to be “in line with the Department’s commitments to provide quality, safe, and environment-friendly infrastructure, improve effectiveness and efficiency in serving the public.”
The guidelines, however, did not mention any role for local officials in the process.
Levels of subcontractors
Marin said most infrastructure projects, including the flood control dikes in his village, involved at least three to four levels of subcontractors.
“I do not know who these subcontractors are,” he said.
While no contractor or subcontractor had sought for his project acceptance signature, he recalled one contractor engaged in other flood control projects in Bulusan provided his barangay some P15,000 worth of relief goods during the recent storms and severe flooding.
Jhen Mark Eleogo, 21, from the similarly flood-stricken Barangay San Jose in Calumpit, said the flood control dikes in his town were “obviously” defective because even during moderate rains, these river and coastal dikes were unable to hold back the surge of water that destroyed homes in his neighborhood.
Main culprit
Marin said Manila Bay’s high tide remained the main culprit in the constant flooding in his village, coupled with the strong water rush from the denuded portions of the Sierra Madre mountain ranges every time there was a downpour.
On Saturday, the water level at his village during high tide reached around 87 centimeters. The expensive dikes were unable to stop the water, he lamented.
In the past 18 years, Marin said the rice farms in the town were gradually submerged in seawater, as the high sea level has now penetrated, almost all year round, the 29 villages of Calumpit, whose southern edge is connected to Manila Bay about 12 kilometers away by the Pampanga River.
According to Marin, because of land subsidence, farms were inundated and residential areas got lower than the level of the rivers. The water from Manila Bay coming into the town is unable to recede, leaving villages submerged for weeks or months.
Homes abandoned
In Sitio Nabong in Barangay Maysulao, most of the residents have abandoned their homes which are now under water all year round.
For years, the provincial, town and city governments in Bulacan have been begging from the national government to solve the perennial flooding.
But none of the projects supposedly done to alleviate their misery had worked, according to Marin.
During his visit, the President said the dike rehabilitation contractor also did not dredge the riverbed, which should have been standard component of a flood control project.
Marin said that like him, officials in his barangay and Gov. Daniel Fernando believe that the solution to the flooding in Calumpit and other parts of Bulacan would be to build a megadike flood control project along the Manila Bay shores to prevent the high tide waters from entering their communities.
