By Manny Piñol
Northern Luzon, including Central Luzon and Metro Manila, could face a serious water supply crisis unless something is done about the massive deforestation which results in the drying up of creeks and rivers.
Flying from Manila to Cagayan Province in an R44 helicopter on Wednesday, I saw the horrifying scenes of heavily silted and drying up rivers, waterless creeks and denuded mountains.
I also saw the very low water level at both La Mesa Dam, which provides water to Metro Manila, and the Magat Dam which is the source of irrigation water for Cagayan Valley.
As a farm boy who witnessed how springs dried up when the trees around these were felled, I must admit that what I saw from the air scared me no end.
Experience taught me that when you cut down trees, the spring water will disappear and once it stops flowing, there is simply no way to bring it back.
In the last High Level Cabinet Meeting on Water presided by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the Department of Agriculture submitted six recommendations on how to address the looming water crisis.
1. A National Program to locate and protect the country’s headwaters must be implemented at the soonest possible time and when this is done, all of these areas should be declared as Highly Protected Areas where no human intrusion should be allowed;
2. The reforestation of the denuded mountains must now be a multi-agency task, not just the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to include Local Government Units;
3. A legislation to require all local government units, with the support of national government agencies, to establish water catchments, small water impounding and mini-dams should be enacted with the needed funding support;
4. The dredging of the country’s major river systems must be undertaken immediately to increase their water-holding capacity and ensure that there will be enough water for the dams and impounding;
5. Government must invest on the construction of more dams not only for irrigation purposes but as reserve reservoir for water supply of urban areas during droughts;
6. Provide funding for alternative and sustainable small irrigation projects like the Solar Powered Irrigation so that rice farms, especially in Central Luzon, will not be dependent on the huge dams for water, thus freeing the supply for the use of Metro Manila and other big urban centres.
This task will not be easy and the results will not be quick.
Trees will not grow and cover the mountains in just two to three years.
In fact, the effect of this advocacy, which I know that President Rody Duterte has already embraced, may not even be felt during his Presidency.
But this is not about today but the future and the next generation of Filipinos.
We must act now or else many more springs will dry up and disappear and they could never be brought back to life.
(I took these photos from a chopper using a Samsung A7 mobile phone.)
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