SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga—A flood mitigation project on a river in Barangay San Felipe here is being held up by a landowner and a “nervous sheriff,” Antonio V. Molano Jr., regional director of the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Luzon, said here Thursday.
Molano said at issue is the one-hectare Zapata property, which runs through the middle of the river in San Felipe. He said the area needs to be dredged or its debris removed because it is impeding the flow of floodwaters downstream into Manila Bay.
The landowner, however, is selling the property to the government for P12,000 per square meter when its appraised value is just P16 per sq m, the DPWH regional chief added.
Moreover, Molano said the “sheriff of Pampanga refuses to implement or serve the writ of execution against the property, despite it already being expropriated in the name of the government last year.”
The sheriff has not acted, the director added, because the landowner has reportedly imported armed men believed to be New People’s Army rebels operating in Isabela to harass authorities going to the property.
“They have held the province of Pampanga hostage for over five years now,” Molano said. “We need to implement these flood control projects to save this area from massive flooding this coming rainy season, which can cause several million pesos in damages both to government and private properties, aside from loss of human lives.”
“We already expropriated the property and deposited P6 million with the bank so that we can proceed with our projects, but the owner continues to refuse [to help the DPWH] by maintaining his asking price, while the sheriff refuses to serve the writ of execution until now,” he complained.
Dredging “must be done at all costs” to prevent flooding in Pampanga and specially this city, which hosts billions of pesos in investments that provide employment to its residents, Molano stressed.
Even if the DPWH can deepen and widen the Federosa river in the town of Sto. Tomas and the Mapalad creek, but fail to do same with the San Felipe river, “the city of San Fernando will be under six to seven feet of water during the rainy season, (and) it’s a different story if the rains will last nine days,” he said.
If all three waterways are cleared of sediments and debris, including water lilies, the floods will continue to travel 10 kilometers downstream, passing the towns of Sto. Tomas, Minalin and Macabebe, straight to Manila Bay, Molano said.
“A large part of the province will be saved, including the City of San Fernando,” he added.
At present, two dredgers are working 24/7 to clear the Federosa and Mapalad waterways, while an amphibious dredger from the provincial government is being requested to help in the deepening and widening of all the river channels before the rainy season, Molano said.
