Wanted: CSF flood czar

 

First responder at the damaged bridge in St. Jude Village, Engr. Marni Castro during Typhoon Ompong in Sept. 2018. 

DAYTIME OF July 25, the City of San Fernando downtown and the peripheral areas were waterlogged with torrential rains wrought by Typhoon Carina and the southwest monsoon.

Evening of August 1, sans any typhoon but with a two-hour downpour habagat alone precipitated, the city went down deeper and wider – Jose Abad Santos Avenue a virtual sea sorely in need of a Moses to part so vehicles could pass, MacArthur Highway a wading pool, Capitol Avenue a jetskier’s delight, Lazatin Boulevard a surfer’s paradise.

Yeah, the complete transformation of Pampanga’s capital city into a waterworld in just two hours of continuous rainfall.

Admittedly, the city has never been flood-free. But the breadth and depth of the floodwaters this week, not to say the frequency, is something that has not been seen or felt in years. So, what gives?

Alas, we remember Marni Castro – and weep. Grieving his demise in October 2021 yet, at this city’s every flooding since. Here’s Citizen Marni published in Punto! on Sept. 17, 2018.      

NO FLOODBUSTER, literally – his official moniker “anti-flood tsar” of the City of San Fernando at the time of the now much missed Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez notwithstanding – still, it’s Engineer Marni Castro that city residents in the know have come to turn to at every coming storm or heavy monsoon rain.

Thus, Saturday past with Typhoon Ompong still unleashing intermittent rains, Marni it was that I texted after a quick look-see at developing cracks on the small bridge to Phase 3 of St. Jude Village where I am domiciled.  

Marni had already assessed the bridge situation – the northern approach had caved in, onrushing water and mud already spilling on the flooded streets every which way, the nearby (uninhabited?) house of Mayor Edwin Santiago unspared – by the time I returned from an errand with the wife to a nearby drugstore. I found him coordinating immediate response on his mobile – mobilizing a backhoe and dump trucks to take out tons of debris that impacted the bridge, sending advisories to city officials, etc.

Affected residents and a team from CLTV 36 were milling around Marni with myriad fearful concerns over the situation when Mayor Santiago and VM Jimmy Lazatin arrived at the site less than an hour later.

The mayor readily deferring to Marni’s recommendations on the immediate to-do’s about the bridge just showed how much confidence the city government has invested in its premier volunteer worker.

Indeed, a volunteer of the highest order Marni makes, shooting to prominence – of the selfless kind – in the lahar aftermath of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.

His off-roading skills were put to good use in rescue-relief operations at each onslaught of lahar from Porac to Bacolor. And even broadened now: at the onset of every typhoon or habagat, he mobilizes his off-roader groups to be on-call for rescue operations.

He went beyond being among the strongest advocates for the FVR megadike systems to actually monitoring – daily – its construction from the digging stage, to the filling and the armoring. No, he did not wangle any contract in any phase of the megadike erection. Why, up to this time he routinely takes the megadike road just to check its condition.

Marni was likewise among the brain trust that birthed the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin taildike that helped saved the southern part of the city and the two towns from more destructive inundations. As in the megadike, he now pushes for the taildike to serve as a major road to from the capital city to Minalin, thereby easing traffic at the old provincial road through Sto. Tomas.

For a number of summers now, Marni has quietly coordinated the declogging of waterways linking San Fernando and the two mentioned towns to immediate, though, as yet incomplete, results – floods are much lower and subside faster in the city.            

That Marni has done much for the city – and Pampanga too – at all cost to him and none to the government and the people is beyond an iota of doubt. Unreasonable, otherwise.

His mantra says it all: “I live for a cause, not for applause.”

Come to think of it, what has he got for it?       

This then is but an affirmation of the badge of citizenship long bestowed on Marni Castro. Can anything be more honorable than this?   

ALAS, MARNI is no more and we all suffer the loss. Alack, the City of San Fernando has not found any need to find someone that can even just approximate him. To our torrential sufferance.