March 5, 2020

The Municipality of EB Magalona sees the urgent need to declog its major waterways to address the perennial flooding it experiences especially during the rainy season.

Mayor Marvin Malacon in a recent radio interview said that his town has been experiencing flooding for a long time which the past administrations failed to address.

"Every year we have been experiencing worsening flooding. There were times that it even reached the town plaza and our public cemetery located along the national highway," the mayor said.

Several studies done by different government agencies have indicated the high vulnerability of EB Magalona to flood. As early as 1999, PAG-ASA’s Hydrological Study of EB Magalona’s waterways already recommended dredging as one of the long-term solutions to mitigate flooding.

As early as 2004, a study done by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) said indicated "the only way to effectively declog waterways is thru dredging."

Malacon said the proposed declogging and rehabilitation of the three major waterways of EB Magalona is "not private sector initiative but a recommendation of the national government agencies to mitigate floods.

"EB Magalona is just a beneficiary of a national government program of cleaning up heavily silted and clogged waterways to reduce the risk of disasters," he said.

“I am only following the recommendations of these national agencies,” Malacon stressed.

In January 2020, the DENR issued Administrative Order No.1 series of 2020 rationalizing dredging activities in heavily-silted channels within Negros Occidental.

It is based on Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1 series of 2019 issued in April 2019 by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and Department of Transportation (DOTr) providing guidelines on flood mitigation activities particularly dredging of waterways.

Mayor Malacon said that contrary to the claims of some sectors, the project "is not black sand mining."

“We have a local ordinance against black sand mining. We will closely monitor the dredging activities and I will be the first to stop their operations if I see that they’re only after black sand,” he added.

However, Malacon said that the dredging of the clogged rivers is urgently needed to give a long-term solution to flooding and restore marine life that has been affected by heavy siltation. He also said that the local government has been planting trees along the rivers as part of their flood-control measures.