The government will push through with a P351 billion Flood Management Master Plan, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Saturday, pressing for lasting fixes to the flooding that has repeatedly overwhelmed the country.
Marcos said a national blueprint for managing floods had existed for years but was left unused until his administration took it up. “We already have a master plan. It’s just never been executed. We’re only executing it now,” he said, faulting his predecessors for shelving it. The document in question is the Aquino-Singson Master Plan, approved in 2012 and, until recently, under review by Malacañang.
The president made the commitment after touring flood-battered towns in Central Luzon this week, where he inspected the damage left by heavy monsoon rains and stressed the need for durable, long-term solutions.
Backing that push, the DPWH is overhauling flood control master plans nationwide. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said many existing plans are outdated or incomplete and must be revised as climate conditions change, since they anchor the engineering design of flood mitigation infrastructure. “These master plans are important because they guide the engineering design of flood mitigation infrastructure,” he said. Rather than relying on a single aging national blueprint, the agency is treating individual river basins, urban areas and other flood-prone locations separately, drawing on current hazard maps and scientific data assembled with UP-NOAH, local government units and other agencies.
Dizon reported real progress: of 18 major river basins and other critical principal rivers, 16 have already had their master plans and feasibility studies updated. The revised plans for the Cagayan and Pasig-Marikina-Laguna de Bay basins are targeted for completion by the end of 2026.
The urgency is weather-driven. Pagasa warned Saturday that the southwest monsoon could bring 50 to 100 millimeters of rain across parts of Luzon through Tuesday, with the provinces at risk shifting each day. In its 5 p.m. advisory, the bureau flagged Zambales, Bataan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Metro Manila, Cavite, Rizal, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro from Saturday into Sunday afternoon; Zambales, Bataan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Cavite, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon; and Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Abra, Benguet, Zambales, Bataan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Cavite, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon.
Pagasa cautioned that mountainous and elevated areas could see even heavier totals, with the danger compounded where the ground is already saturated from earlier rains.
