The Pampanga provincial government is lending an amphibious excavator to the city government of San Fernando to help the capital ease flooding by clearing rivers of water hyacinths and garbage, Vice Gov. Dennis Pineda said.
Pineda, vice chair of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said the provincial government would also provide diesel for the excavator for three months to four months of clearing works.
The provincial government has full use of the excavator through a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) through Secretary Mark Villar. DPWH is also providing operator for the same equipment.
Pineda said the provincial government extended help at the request of Levy
P. Laus, chair emeritus of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Mayor Edwin Santiago during a meeting here last Wednesday (May 17).
“It is important to assist San Fernando in its flood mitigation program because the city is hosts to more than 50 regional government agencies, around 100 banks and thousands of commercial and industrial establishments that are important in sustaining the development of Central Luzon,” the vice government said.
A portion of the San Felipe River in San Fernando remained narrow as a court has yet to finally resolve the expropriation case of the DPWH on a riversi
de property near Federosa that the Zapata family obtained through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in the 1990s.
Pineda said a portion of the Inumang Baka River in Mexico town also needs quarrying to hasten the flow of Angeles City waters that flood San Fernando.
PamCham had asked Villar to fund the annual clearing of waterways in Pampanga where the 30 river systems of the Pampanga River throughout Central Luzon drain before emptying to Manila Bay. The sand that Mt. Pinatubo erupted 25 years ago continue to silt rivers.