By Joel B. Belinan
to the afterlife.“
We are already at the end of September and we haven’t had a strong typhoon or monsoon rains. In fact, our dams are badly waiting to be filled which means the water supply of communities dependent on these, specially Metro Manila, is in danger. At the back of my mind could it be that our creator does not want us to be grappling with two crises?
This pandemic and whatever havoc strong typhoons or monsoon rains would create might be too much for us. Looking at our situation we are relatively fine (if you take away Covid-19) in comparison to how we were in past rainy seasons. But then again bear in mind that while we don’t like those destructive typhoons we really need strong rains. Not just for drinking water but also for the irrigation of agricultural areas.
With the pandemic’s impact on our economy, the government had been saying that our best chance of economic recovery lies in our agricultural sector. With this “non-rainy” season we have, that assumption is hopeless. Furthermore, the government is putting too much hope on agriculture but what had it been doing for the farmers other than burden them with all those anti-local farming policies.
Look at the price of palay now, would a famer be encouraged to till his/her rice field or would it be better to just sell it to any of those numerous land developers?
The Cordillera region is called the Watershed Cradle of the North due to our high elevation or mountainous terrain. Much of Regions I and II and to some extent Region III are dependent on the water from our river systems. We are host to large hydro-electric dams with irrigation system components, mini- and micro-Hydros, all of which are dependent on water. Feeders of these dams include the Agno River, Chico River, Amburayan River, Abra River, Abulog River, Hapao River, Bued River, among others, all considered as the life veins of our neighbor lowland regions. All of these rivers might not have enough water when the dry season comes, or by the first quarter of next year, the period the government is projecting when our economic recovery season will start or when Covid-19 vaccines would be readily available.
Sometime in 2006 and 2007, I was commissioned together with my friend Clint Taynan to do a photo and video documentation on these rivers by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA CAR) led by then Regional Irrigation Manager Abraham Akilit who is now the Mayor of Bauko, Mountain Province. Back then the situation was very bad and I’m sure it’s even worse now as to the water flowing in those rivers. Even with the hoped for best case scenario that we will have strong typhoons in October and November (we hope they will not be so destructive), these will not be enough.
Moreover, weather patterns showed that most strong typhoons during the months of October, November and even December usually hit the southern provinces. So the government needs to have a comprehensive plan to abort an impending water crisis. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear any news about such a move. It seems everybody has been pre-occupied with the pandemic.
In my years of covering the Regional Development Council (RDC), our being the watershed cradle of the north is one of the best leverage we had as a region to be given a fair share of the development fund of the national government. However, years had passed and much of those policy recommendations towards that end had just been completely ignored.
Our leaders who had passionately worked for us to be given our due for being the watershed cradle of the north had either retired or had already gone to the afterlife. Ah, maybe we really need to feel the impact of a water crisis for our being host to the aforesaid rivers to be appreciated.
Look at how the Covid-19 pandemic created big problems in the entire world that now countries have cut their dependence on China and started producing their needs in their own backyards. Maybe that is what we need for our water to be valued and for climate change to be properly reckoned with.**
