Typhoon Ondoy, reportedly a tropical storm with a relatively weak rating of Signal #1, hit landfall near the border of Aurora and Quezon provinces. It dumped the first of 16 inches of rainwater on the denuded mountains of the Sierra Madres, northeast of the Metro Manila, where locals had already been advocating for more forceful government intervention on continued illegal logging (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20090929-227494/Sierra-Madre-group-blames-Arroyo-for-Ondoy-disaster).
Some of the waters immediately flowed into nearby Angat Lake through which Ondoy passed. Angat is the primary watershed that feeds the metropolis’ water system. It is held back by the Angat and Ipo dams which overflowed quickly, flooding the towns in plains of Bulacan province. Government authorities decided to make a controlled release of the overflowing waters to relieve pressure on the dams and to avoid a catastrophic scenario of waters cascading towards Metro Manila. It was a scenario once feared by U.S. military strategists in May 1945 as they battled the Japanese Imperial Army for control of the Ipo dam right soon after Manila's liberation (So one former senator’s knee-jerk reaction of prosecuting the dam officials must be reconsidered). Metro Manila's relief, became Bulacan's grief (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20090928-227355/Floodwaters_hit_Bulacan_towns).
While the dams slowed some of the raging waters, Ondoy nonetheless continued its massive downpour along its path, and simultaneously the floodwaters that had fallen on the Sierra Madres flashed quickly into the Marikina River’s main tributaries above Wawa dam, a decommissioned reservoir near Rodriguez (formerly known as Montalban), in Rizal province. From there, the waters began wreaking havoc on the human settlements along the Marikina Valley as it swelled and raged violently towards Laguna de Bay.
The next major town to be hit by flash floods would have been San Mateo. Thereafter, the City of Marikina, parts of Quezon City along the valley, and municipalities of Cainta, Pasig, and Taguig would soon be swept by the floodwaters. As these passed through densely populated areas, the waters would have been diverted by the Mangahan Floodway into Laguna de Bay where the they would have slowed and sought its own level. In the aftermath, more bodies would be recovered in the area (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/metro/view/20090929-227503/6-bodies-found-in-Taguig-waterway).
However, Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the Philippines was also rising from Odyong’s rains and from the waters of its own 2o tributaries in Laguna and Rizal provinces. Moreover, the lake’s holding capacity have already been compromised by heavy siltation. Soon the cities and towns along the lake’s shores would also be submerged in varying degrees, and the floodwaters from the Mangahan Floodway would just gradually dam back up from where it flowed, keeping many areas upstream submerged.
During the rainy season, the waters of Laguna de Bay normally flow out to Manila Bay, snaking through 25 kilometers of the Pasig River, the most formidable obstacle before reaching the sea. As an Australia AID publication from the 1990's prophetically described it: "The Pasig River is the only outlet that drains excess water from the landlocked Laguna de Bay. It also drains13 major river tributaries, in addition to Manila’s vanishing network of esteros (narrow canals) and creeks. If the Pasig became blocked, the low-lying areas of Rizal, Laguna, and Manila north and south of the river would be transformed into a lake."
And a lake they did become because through the years, water flow along the Pasig River has been slowed, if not blocked completely by siltation, by accumulated organic and inorganic debris, and by blocked drainage. (Google Earth depth readings along the the Pasig River is greater than zero in many parts, suggesting that siltation and debris do block water flow into Manila Bay).
North of the Pasig River, one of its many tributaries, the San Juan River, rose and raged through the northern part of the metropolis inundating the urban landscape to unprecedented depths. A video footage of the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay (UERM) compound along the river bank showed how parked cars floated like matchboxes and how people held on dearly to any tree or structure they could grab (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6nkxVaydmY).
Similarly, south of the Pasig, waters had nowhere to flow thru because of blocked drainage pipes, canals, and eastment creeks, thus submerging the Makati financial district and its environs, epecially around Pasay City. A frail elderly man in his late 80's, a former commodore of the Philippine Navy was rescued from the second floor of his home in Magallanes Village, an upper middle class gated community that never had been flooded in recent memory.
Three days after the heavy rains, while waters have receded in areas upstream, the towns around the lake like Pateros and Muntinlupa remain submerged in waist-deep water. Government officials refused to open the floodgates to drain the lake for fear of flooding the Presidential palace which is set on a low-lying area along the Pasig River, again Malacanang's relief became Laguna's grief.
While water quality on the Pasig River improved somewhat due to some initiatives during the Ramos administration in the mid-1990's, flood control and drainage did not. Government agencies of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the the Metro Manila Development Autority (MMDA) have studied this flooding issue time and time again. There have been numerous studies, plans, more studies, and more plans, but, obviously, there has been little meaningful action. Ineptitude seems to be the norm rather than exception, and the Arroyo administration's authoritarian and imperious governance style has stifled competence and initiatives of otherwise capable bureaucrats (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/metro/view/20090930-227669/DPWH-asked-to-open-channel-to-ease-Muntinlupa-floods).
While water quality on the Pasig River improved somewhat due to some initiatives during the Ramos administration in the mid-1990's, flood control and drainage did not. Government agencies of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the the Metro Manila Development Autority (MMDA) have studied this flooding issue time and time again. There have been numerous studies, plans, more studies, and more plans, but, obviously, there has been little meaningful action. Ineptitude seems to be the norm rather than exception, and the Arroyo administration's authoritarian and imperious governance style has stifled competence and initiatives of otherwise capable bureaucrats (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/metro/view/20090930-227669/DPWH-asked-to-open-channel-to-ease-Muntinlupa-floods).
We can not blame it all on Nature because she warned us many times in the past, most significantly in September 1998 when the Markina Valley area was also severely flooded by a typhoon. Now she has returned with a vengeance pouring a month’s worth of rain (16 inches) within nine hours (a unique phenomenon that is a portent of things to come in the age of global climate warming); but, without doubt, human folly, denuded mountains, poor drainage, inadequate infrastructure, misplaced priorities, and venal governance have all contributed to this great tragedy.
Filipinos have yet again proven their heroism, their resiliency and self-reliance especially in the face of crisis, but the tragedy of the 2009 deluge will be repeated again and again until a more democratic system of governance is finally instituted, a system that is worthy of its people, founded on the lives of the innocent. If we are to build a monument for Filipino heroism in the Deluge of 2009, let it be a new system of governance th. let the floodwaters in our hearts sweep away the muck and along with floodwaters, let us sweep vnal governance of the face of the country. is ,utter survival of families who have lost their homes, but surely there must be accountability. Surely, there will be a day of reckoning.
