Flood and Floods Everywhere in the Philippines

Floods in the Philippines

Why the Philippines is getting flooded

Every year, floods struck the Philippines with a devastating blow than the typhoon winds itself. After the typhoon passed by, it will suck all the monsoon clouds from the ocean, pouring all the water from the land, causing lots of deaths and damage to properties, hamper the economy, put the businesses and agricultural business to a halt every year. So I classified what is the problem, why we have so many devastating floods in the country.

1. The obvious; As captain obvious will say, because they cut the trees that absorb the water and the global warming melts the ice so the sea level rises every year, also as the earth warms, typhoon is its natural cooling system, the warmer the place is, the more powerful the typhoon wind and rains will be, well that is the obvious.

Solution; Listen to the green crowd. Approving more coal fired power plants is not going to help. More on electric vehicles, we already have E-trikes, E-jeeps and E-carts plying the metropolis as proof it can be done. Lease residential and commercial rooftops and place a solar panel on it giving them rooftops owner incentives for doing so like electric billing discounts.

2. Population; It seems its getting worst, a lot of people is dying and displaced because of the floods, but if we look at it, decades ago, no one is living on that flat plane, no ones squatting in the river canal, now people are every where living where ever they want to. And the government don't care because the population has the voting power, mess with them, elected officials get messy after the election.

Solution; Create a digital map flood hazard, the government should prevent people from living on those flood hazard areas. I believe that population is an asset so you won't be expecting from me suggesting a solution on population control.

3. Land Conversion/Zoning; decades ago, this place was just a farm land and a creek where water pass by, now there is a Mall and a subdivision, so when a heavy rain comes, where do the water goes? it gets trapped and creates an artificial dam system on places where the water is trapped, and when the trapped water found its way out, its going to be a flash flood, so fast, the people don't know what hit them.

Solution; Come on government create water channels and use digital maps to map out the floods so water would go back to the river, and be strict on zoning or land conversion policies or even have some studies on it.

4. Deep Well Pumps; The more people pump water using deep well, according the a study, the more the land sinks, and primarily the Philippines mainly use deep wells as water source aside from dam sites even though the Philippines is surrounded by sea water. They still prefer deep well pumps especially in depressed areas.

Solution; Find a way to convert sea water cheaply into usable water, we are surrounded by sea water and its not running out in the future. Probably use Solar or Wind turbine to power water desalination plants.

5. Drainage System; Yes yes, those garbage clogging our drainage system and most of it are shopping bag, the reason some cities penalize the use of plastic shopping bag but you can still get one but you have to pay P2 each which means makes the business guys more profit, which in turn is useless because people would just be using black garbage bags instead or the people would be more lazy to throw their garbage in the right place thus increasing garbage mess in the metropolis. But its not just that, its also connected to how houses are build, its just that more house is equals to more water being pump in the drainage when heavy rain pours, those water gushing in that came from the house gutters combine with the heavy rain will create a water traffic and exceeding capacity of the drainage system thus cause flooding.

Solution; Aside from garbage policies, recycling, awareness and reinforcement, the government should require or at least make an effort on equipping houses with water catchment where liters of rain water will be collected before being thrown out in the drainage, this will help delay the water being pump out of the drainage system that will cause water traffic, It will also help during summer where there is water shortage, those water catchment tanks can be used for cleaning or watering the plants during summer season instead of using tap water to preserve water during those water shortage summer season. During the rainy season, it seems that all the water in the ocean dropped by the land then on summer, we complained on where have all the water gone to?

6. Government; as you can see the above problems and even solutions fall in the hands of the government or they have the power to change the above, its their job anyway so no debate there, aside from fixing corruption in their houses like those overpriced flood control projects and so on.

Solution; Vote properly, we people is still the power behind electing government officials. A dumb vote is equals a dumb government official. And your vote can either save or make your life miserable.

In the picture in San Fernando Pampanga. The tax paying people payed for this kilometers of dike for flood control, now rehabilitated by sand bag, a portion which gave in, is now useless, because the other side, when heavy rains pour, it creates a dam effect as there is no water to go which supposedly going back to the river, some genius billionaire blocked the water passage on where the water should go, which is going back to the river and the government, instead of making a water passage way, they would just patch the dike yearly after the damage is done, after lives is lost and property is damaged by the flash floods. When that rain water fills that opposite area and creates an artificial dam, it will find a way to overflow or destroy another portion of the kilometers dike, creating a flash flood in the local town which supposedly being protected by this dike. So much for the pumping station.