Sen. Legarda commits to authoring bill creating NCR drainage management agency

During Thursday’s Asia-Pacific Housing Forum plenary on ensuring efficiency and impact in disaster risk reduction and management, Senator Loren Legarda pledged that she would author a bill that would create an agency responsible solely for the management of Metro Manila’s drainage system.

Legarda's commitment came upon the suggestion of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino, who lamented that Metro Manila’s drainage system was maintained and operated by different entities.

Some were being maintained by the MMDA, while most were under the care of the Public Works and Highways Department. Some city governments, private villages and subdivisions also have their share in maintaining parts of the drainage system.
 
As a solution, Tolentino pointed to the model of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which has its own Department of Drainage, the central entity managing all of Hong Kong’s drainage system.
 
“If the good senator would accept the idea of having a bureau of drainage just for the Metro Manila area,” Tolentino quipped, “Just one entity to maintain, and probably interlink this with the current [concession agreements] with water utilities.”

Legarda, despite her promise to help create the Metro Manila drainage agency, cautioned, “Legislation is one thing but having it implemented is another.”

Relocation

Meanwhile, the senator believed that relocating the informal settlers occupying over half the National Capital Regions’ esteros was a major solution to the NCR’s perennial flooding problems.

“Kung walang dadaluyan ng tubig, kalahati ng dapat daluyan ng tubig ay may tao, iyon ang dahilan. So they must be relocated,” said Legarda.
 
As for the state of relocations efforts, Tolentino reported that interagency efforts of the MMDA, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the National Housing Authority aimed to clear the eight major waterways by December of ths year.

These waterways include the San Juan River, Tulyahan River, and portions of Pasig River.
 
Around 90,440 families shall be cleared and relocated.
 
“But to cover the 237 [esteros in Metro Manila] it will take years,” Tolentino said.
 
The other speakers during the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum were Deputy Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Alicia Bala, Chief Executive of Mercy Relief Hassan Ahmad, Global Disaster Response Senior Director of Habitat for Humanity International Kip Scheidler, and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. — DVM, GMA News