ONE sure way to stop the recurring water shortage for Metro Manilans and the deadly flooding of the already silted Angat Dam is for President Duterte to order an immediate stop to logging and to reforest the dam’s 62,000- hectare watershed cover.
The dam’s reservation includes parts of Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and the Sierra Madre Mountain.
As a result of the unabated logging, the dam’s original 217-meter water level is now only 85 meters, thus depriving Metro Manilans the equivalent of 132 meters deep of reserved water.
The Angat Dam aqueduct was supposed to allow water flow of 22 CMS (cubic meters per second) from Angat to La Mesa Dam and thus supply the water requirements of Metro Manila and the adjacent provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
Worse, what remains of the 62,000 hectares, if reports are accurate, is now only about 25,000 hectares of watershed.
Recently, the National Association of Lawyers for Justice and Peace (NALJP) and The Confederation of Government Employees Organization (Cogeo), headed by Atty. Jesus I. Santos, wrote Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), bringing to his attention the problem of water shortage, the unabated logging of the Angat Dam watershed and the continued siltation of the water reservoir.
Santos, in his letter to Cimatu, cited in details the destructive logging in the Angat watershed, the siltation of the dam’s water reservoir and the death and destruction due to flooding which was proven in a Senate investigation on the complaint of the NALJP.
Angat Dam watershed was then a Virgin Forest.
Sometime after the declaration of martial law, a close kin of former President Marcos sent two engineering battalions to Angat to cut high-class trees, including Lawaan, Kamagong and other expensive varieties that effectively covered and preserved the water reservoir.
In reaction, President Marcos ordered Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile to immediately stop the cutting of trees in the watershed and the cancellation of the permit granted to his kin, thus abruptly stopping the degradation of the watershed.
Unfortunately, the next administration of President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino promulgated on July 16, 1987, Executive Order 224, empowering the National Power Corp. (NPC) to cut trees in the Angat reservation.
It was then that the sad story of the Angat Dam watershed began to unravel in 1989 when the NPC brazenly issued permits to cut trees in the Angat Dam reservation that saw the destruction of the watershed.
Because of the massive denudation, the dam is now terribly silted due to landslides and rampaging volumes of floodwater and debris coming from the mountain watershed.
Sometime in 1978, floodwaters cascaded from the watershed, flooding large parts of Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija, killing more than 300 people and destroying houses, poultries, piggeries and other valuables.
On February 22, 2018, the NALJP and the Cogeo wrote to the DENR to request for a meeting regarding the continuous illegal logging in the watershed. The DENR granted this meeting, which was also attended by the governor of Bulacan and the PNP area commander.
After the meeting, the DENR informed the group that there was a permit granted by the government to cut 26,000 trees, but the DENR reduced it to 3,000 trees only, based on a press release dated June 19, 2017.
The NALJP and Cogeo asked the DENR local director what actions were taken on the following:
“The tree-cutting projects granted to Angat Hydropower Corp. and Dyke Rehabilitation Projects, which were contained in a letter dated April 27, 2017, as per letter of the regional director dated July 7, 2017?
“What happened to the 3,000 trees cut and delivered to the compound of the controversial Hanjin Corp.? According to Director Francisco Milla of DENR’s Region 3, the 3,000 trees could only be taken out from the Hanjin compound with his consent.
“Was the illegal logging in the Angat Watershed ordered stopped by Gov. Willie Alvarado ever followed?”
Santos and the rest of his group never got a coherent answer.
What really surprised Santos and local officials is that instead of the national government stopping the denudation of the Angat watershed, it is, in fact, the one abetting the destruction of the watershed with NPC, in particular, issuing the permit to log the area.
The Angat watershed is located mainly in the municipality of Doña Remedios Trinidad in Bulacan, with a smaller portion within the municipality of Norzagaray. The Angat watershed has an original total land area of 65,707 hectares.
The water from the Angat Dam was supposed to run a 16-megawatt auxiliary generator and a 200-megawatt main generator to supply the power requirements of Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
The dam was also intended to irrigate 20 municipalities in Bulacan and Pampanga. The dam was also capable of irrigating an average area of 23,000 hectares during the wet season and 27,000 hectares during the dry season when the sluice gates were opened.
Prospectively, unless logging, both legal and illegal, is immediately stopped, expect not only another serious water shortage in the metropolis but also death and destruction in the coming rainy days.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.