That masterplan

 

                                                                                  Punto FB Page 

 “WE already have a master plan; it’s just never been executed.”

Atop the Aquino Bridge (or is it the Agana Bridge?) which partially collapsed due to strong river currents and torrential southwest monsoon rains, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. may have rued over what could have at least mitigated flooding and its concomitant destruction in vast areas of Central Luzon.

“We are only executing it now. We have had a master plan for decades, but walang ginawa. Hanggang ngayon lang. Ngayon lang natin sinisimulan,” he iterated, if only, perhaps, to underscore the consequence.

Marcos Jr. though did not give specifics to the masterplan he referenced during his Tarlac City visit on Sept.2. 

PBBM with Sec. Dizon and Tarlac officials at Agana Bridge. Mayor Susan Yap FB Page

Separately, Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon said as much, and more: “Puro away at puro salitaan… ang dami nang plano, now it’s time to execute.”

And explicitly, Dizon said the president’s marching order is clear: Stop talking and start executing flood-control plans – in the context of the Candaba detention basin proposed as a potential solution to flooding in Central Luzon but was not implemented due to what he said as “political infighting.”

Forgive Dizon for misreading the cause of the masterplan’s failure to launch. He was two years and 24 days yet from his appointment to DPWH when that happened. The now-disgraced Manuel Bonoan forced to resign on Sept. 1, 2025.

Aye, that was a day over a year ago. Some augury obtaining there? Anyways…

August 7, 2023. Pampanga Provincial Capitol

President Marcos Jr. was presiding over a situational briefing in the wake of severe flooding due to the southwest monsoon rains enhanced by consecutive tropical cyclones Egay and Falcon. (Déjà vu, just like of late). 

As former Public Works Secretary Rogelio “Babes” Singson, president and CEO of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., was presenting a proposal to turn portions of the Candaba Swamp in Pampanga and the San Antonio Swamps in Nueva Ecija into water impounding facilities, Pampanga 4^th District Rep. Anna York Bondoc without so much as a bye-your-leave interjected: “Hindi po kami papayag sa impounding sa Candaba Swamp, that is a wrong concept and we are not going to allow that. Diyan sa Candaba, diyan nag-umpisa ang Hukbalahap movement, if you want a security problem sirain nyo yang hanapbuhay ng lahat ng magsasaka sa Candaba, magwa-walk out po kami dito.”

Bondoc resurrecting the Red bogey there, as though it could still instill terror from its post-Soviet grave.  

To his credit, the president did not indulge the un-parliamentarian’s impudence.

“If there are people who will be displaced, I will personally guarantee each farmer that they will be transferred to another location that is equally good to ensure they won’t encounter difficulties or losses,” Marcos Jr. maintained, even as he noted that dredging is a temporary solution that is “exceedingly costly.”

“In the longer term we really have to study what we are going to do in terms of impounding. We have to study it well because if we don’t do anything, [flooding] will keep on happening even if [the rivers are] dredged,” the president averred.

And lectured on: “Kaya nga hindi na bumababa yung tubig dahil napuno na sa ibaba, it is not something that we are doing intentionally, it is something that happened dahil napakalakas ng ulan doon sa itaas. Instead of arguing, what do you suggest?”

With Singson clarifying that Candaba Swamp alone can store excess water which could be released once the Pampanga River drains, thereby preventing massive inundation, the local government executives committed to support the proposal.

The president’s last word during the briefing: “The location of water impounding is not a political decision, it is a decision made for us by nature. Kailangan nating sundan ang takbo ng lupa, ang takbo ng tubig. Hindi dahil pabor yung isa, malapit sa presidente yung isa. It doesn’t work that way.”

And that was the end of it.

Alas, three years and 26 days after, we hear Dizon say, today, Sept. 2: “Now it’s time to execute.”

We can only hope he’s on the same page as the president.

As for Bondoc, that moment of insolence has become the albatross around her neck, reeking at every flooding over the loss of what might have been.