DENR flags 'poorly situated' flood control projects

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has flagged several poorly situated flood control projects, which may have caused more harm and created more flooding in communities.

During the Senate committee on finance’s deliberations into the proposed 2026 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), DENR Undersecretary Carlos Primo David said they detected anomalous projects in several areas through the use of satellite imagery.

“The poorly situated projects, in my personal opinion, are more important even compared to the ghost projects that we have been investigating. Every time we constrict, block, divert, or alter natural waterways, we change the velocity and volume of water flow,” David said

He cited a particular case in New Bataan, Davao de Oro where a dike constricts the river, which makes it straight instead of meandering.

“And the effect of this is that the flow of water actually becomes faster and the volume of water that will normally spread throughout its floodplain will now be diverted further downstream, creating more floods downstream,” he added.

David also said that there are instances where constructing river dikes to protect one area “often transfers flood risk to another area.”

He said that in Tarlac, there are two dike projects that supposedly were not coordinated with each other.

“The river flows from left to right and because there is a gap in the dikes that were constructed, during the rainy season, it is even more possible that the water enters into the community where in fact, previously, they probably get flooded, but this time, it’s actually exacerbated,” he explained.

He also said that some projects are also considered poorly situated because they do not function as a flood control structure, even if they do not cause harm.

He further flagged a reclamation project in Laguna de Bay, which was tagged as a flood control project by the DPWH.

“This one, I wish the DPWH would look further into because we’re not an investigating party in this flood control issue, but we transfer everything to those that are investigating, whether it be the blue ribbon committee, DPWH or the ICI,” David said.

“This is a flood control project within Laguna de Bay, but if you look at the satellite images, they are actually reclamation projects within the lake right along C6. And so, this is a different kind of issue because there are much, much more permits, environmental impact, maybe it even causes further flooding within the Laguna lake area when you do reclamation projects,” he added.

Aside from this, David also said that there are multiple projects along Camiling River in Tarlac, which were funded in different years.

“But if you plot it in a map like this, you will see that there are overlaps in the projects,” he explained.

“It is only through geospatial data such as this that you will see some of the other problematic issues related to flood control.”

Dismantled

For DPWH’s part, Secretary Vince Dizon said that some of these flood control projects may have to be dismantled because of their negative impacts to the communities and the environment.

“According to Usec. David, their evidence shows that not only have some of those flood control projects been useless, but they have become harmful pa. Meaning, sumama pa ‘yung baha (the flooding has become worse),” he said.

Dizon also revealed that none of the flood control projects they visited and investigated has an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).

“‘Yung mga binisita ni Presidente, ‘yung mga binisita namin na iniimbestigahan namin ngayon, wala pong ECC,” he said.

(Those visited by the President and by us, they don’t have ECC.)

Dizon said this when Senator Loren Legarda stressed that "infrastructure must take into consideration the natural ecosystem around it.”

“You just don’t build a dike without knowing where the water goes. And we cannot fight the water, kailangan may mga (there has to be) small water impounding, mga (and) rain garden,” Legarda said. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News