Some Bago residents are opposing the Sibud Creek Drainage Sub Project that is part of the Bago River Irrigation System Rehabilitation Improvement Project, saying it will cause flooding.

Rosemarie Gonzales, convenor of the Pumuluyo Kontra National Irrigation Administration Sibud Project, and Felicitas Acosido, president of the San Gabriel Homeowners’ Association, asked that the project be stopped, in a letter to Hiroshi Togo, chief representative of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation in the Philippines.

The project is being funded through a JBIC loan.

The Sibud Creek that the BRISRIP has begun excavating and widening purportedly to serve as a drainage canal of the irrigation system, covers about 19 kilometers starting from Barangay Malingin, traversing Barangay Napoles and Barangay Lag-asan, and ending at Barangay Balingasag, all of Bago City, they said.

BRISRIP has started work on some sections of the Sibud Creek without information dissemination or consultation with the local officials or residents, Gonzales and Acosido said.

Trees had also been uprooted without the permission of owners and payments had not been made for the destroyed trees, they added.

They said that, with the clearing of  trees and vegetation along the Sibud Creek, the creek will soon become heavily silted and defeat the  aim of making it an efficient drainage canal, PKNSP said.

As presently planned, excavation and widening work on the Creek will stop some 4 km before the end of the Creek by the sea, they said.

The area where the BRISRIP work will end already becomes flooded during heavy rainfall, particularly in San Gabriel Subdivision, the Bago City Hospital area and other low-lying areas of Barangay Balingasag, as well as the national road around the Sibud bridge in the Poblacion area, and will also likely add to the flooding of the Bago City Public Market, they added.

Clearing and excavation of the Sibud Creek will expose the residents, their children, and their farm animals to danger, including drowning, they said.

It will also cause difficulties for residents to cross the Creek, and to bring their farm animals from one side of the Creek to the other, they added.

Meanwhile, Bago resident Romana de los Reyes, in a letter to National Irrigation Administrator Carlo Salazar, aired her support to the opposition of PKNSP for the Sibud Creek drainage project.

Contrary to the participatory approach for which the NIA is known, BRISRIP gave approval to their contractors to clear and excavate portions of the Creek without consultation neither with the barangay officials nor with the community residents affected, she said.

She also asked Salazar to review the drainage improvement that BRISRIP has programmed and to assess whether this is an appropriate use of scarce resources.*CPG

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