DPWH chief decries lack of budget for river dredging equipment to prevent flooding

Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan on Thursday decried the lack of funding for the Department of Public Works and Highways' dredging and desilting programs, a week after rains brought by Typhoon Carina and the enhanced Southwest Monsoon flooded parts of Luzon, including much of Metro Manila.

Speaking at a Senate inquiry into the persistent flooding in the country, Bonoan said that siltation—or the accumulation of sediment pollution at the bottom of bodies of water like rivers—is one of the reasons why the cities near the principal rivers in the country are quickly submerged in flood.

"When we took over in July, from a technical point of view, tinitingnan namin [we were looking at] what seems to be the problem in the principal rivers that we are talking about right now...I found out that over the years, there has not been any dredging and desilting operations that were carried out in the principal rivers all over the country," Bonoan told the Senate committee on public works.

"This is the reason why 'yung lahat ng major rivers natin [all of our major rivers] are silted and the riverbeds are very shallow to a point that any downpour...mag-o-overflow 'yung riverbanks [the riverbanks overflow]...We would have liked actually to create in the program of the department 'yung desilting and dredging operations natin," he added.

Despite DPWH's request to include funds for desilting operations in the 2023 and 2024 national budgets, Bonoan said they were not given any for this specific program.

"In 2023, we already proposed a budget for maintenance and operations of dredgers. Unfortunately, nawala rin po, 2024 ganun din po [nothing happened, and again in 2024]," Bonoan lamented.

Senator Nancy Binay recalled that in the previous budget deliberations, the Senate decided to provide funds for the procurement of dredging equipment to remove the silt instead of contracting services because these activities had been "abused."

However, Bonoan disclosed that there was no new equipment bought for their dredging operations.

"So walang nabiling new [nothing new was bought]?" Binay asked.

"I think ang nadatnan lang namin [what we came upon] is actually mga old dredging equipment, your honor, and we wanted to rehabilitate some of them and we wanted to maintain some of them," Bonoan said.

"We do not have enough even to maintain the dredging equipment as of this time," he added.

Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. then manifested that this request should be considered by the Senate committee on finance which will scrutinize and endorse programs which will be included in the 2025 national budget. — BM, GMA Integrated News