The Senate leadership is determined to approve the bill establishing a Department of Water Resources (DWR) not only to address floods during the rainy season, but also the water shortage in times of El Niño.
In an interview with ANC on Monday, Senate President Francis "Chiz" Escudero said he hopes the measure, which is one of the priority bills of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., will be passed by the Senate within the year.
"Hopefully, within the year, we will be able to create the Department of Water that the administration is asking for, and hopefully, we will be able to integrate, and through convergence, be able to use water that we don't need during flooding, or water that we need during El Niño episodes in our country," Escudero said.
"We will try to set at the latest within the year, hopefully, fingers crossed before we go on recess in October, before October," he said.
He said the country needs to "rationalize water" by "being able to utilize it when it is needed, and take it from where it is in excess."
"We are patterning it after the transmission of the NGCP [National Grid Corporation of the Philippines] kung kaya na nating dalhin [ang kuryente] mula Luzon papuntang Visayas, mula Visayas papuntang Mindanao, at Mindanao papuntang Visayas, dapat sana 'yong tubig ganon din (if we can bring power from Luzon to Visayas, from Visayas to Mindanao, and Mindanao to Visayas, the water should also be like that)," he said.
Senator Grace Poe filed Senate Bill No. 102, or the National Water Resource Management Act, and was already able to start discussion on it when she was still the chairperson of the Committee on Public Services.
With the creation of the DWR, Poe believes that the national government would "effectively manage" the country's 421 river basins; 59 natural lakes; 100,000 hectares of freshwater swamps; 50,000 square km. of groundwater reservoir; and 2,400 millimeters of average rainfall throughout the year.
OCD: Comprehensive plans needed
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) also stressed the importance of developing comprehensive plans to mitigate floods and address water scarcity.
“Unless we roll out the necessary engineering infrastructure that will contain the floods during the rainy season and provide water during droughts, we will read the same reports on massive damage and hear the same complaints from people who are adversely affected," OCD chief Ariel Nepomuceno said in a statement.
He said comprehensive plans, should be crafted and based on and inspired by science, must cover the country's 18 major river basins and the communities surrounding them.
"Big dams for flood control, veers, levy systems, irrigation canals, catch basins, relocation of vulnerable communities, respect for no-build zones, landslide preventions, alarm systems and safety protocols, reforestation, and no-nonsense management of all these must be in place soon,” he said.
Nepomuceno described engineering infrastructure and other scientific steps as “one stone hitting two birds,” noting that these solutions to the water crisis also address massive floods.
Based on the latest advisory of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), the country is now on La Niña alert status, with a 70 percent chance of the phenomenon forming between August to October and is likely to persist until the first quarter of next year. (with report from Priam Nepomuceno/PNA)
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