Baronda pushes revival of city’s flood control plan left unfunded

By Mariela Angella Oladive

Iloilo City lone district Rep. Julienne Baronda has urged the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to revive and fund the long-stalled second phase of the Iloilo Flood Control Project, warning that the city faces worsening risks from flooding and land subsidence.

During the Sept. 17 budget hearing for the 2026 DPWH budget, Baronda cautioned that Iloilo could become “the next Venice” as rising sea levels and a land subsidence rate of 9 millimeters per year continue to threaten more than a quarter of the city’s coastal and low-lying areas.

She recalled that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) conducted a feasibility study as early as 1992, which included both Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the flood control project.

Stage 1—covering 4 kilometers of floodways and 7 kilometers of improved waterways—was completed in 2012 after two decades of work and JICA funding.

But Baronda questioned why Stage 2, which would cover 16 kilometers of the Jaro River from Pavia to Iloilo City and several tributary creeks, was excluded from funding.

Among the waterways left out are the Dungon, Calajunan, Buntatala, Nabitasan, Baluarte, Ticud, and Mansaya Creeks, along with the Iloilo and Batiano Rivers.

“Mr. Secretary, I have the JICA study, and Stage 2 is included in it,” Baronda told DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon after he claimed only Stage 1 was covered.

She noted that between 2018 and 2019, DPWH Region 6 already allocated PHP 115 million for related works, with appropriations later rising to PHP 2.453 billion from 2020 to 2025.

The city’s own drainage masterplan, completed in 2017, also outlined a PHP 6.2-billion program that Baronda admitted could not be completed within her term without national support.

The 1995 JICA Master Plan, she said, identified urgent improvements such as earth dikes, revetments, and sluice gates for the most flood-prone creeks.

DPWH hydrologic data further show that many of these waterways cannot withstand even a two-year flood event, much less the 25- to 50-year return floods they are designed for.

At least 55 barangays in Jaro, La Paz, Mandurriao, and City Proper remain highly vulnerable, according to DPWH raw data, with thousands of households affected during heavy rains.

Baronda stressed that the project requires both structural solutions—like detention tanks, flood walls, and channel improvements—and non-structural measures, including hazard mapping, watershed management, and stricter solid waste control.

Initial cost estimates for the urban drainage and river improvement plan exceed PHP 4.23 billion.

In response, Dizon promised to review the project’s status and explore possible funding sources.

“We will try… whether through Official Development Assistance (ODA), which we will propose to JICA, or national resources,” he said.

Baronda ended her appeal by pressing DPWH to clarify whether it will actively seek renewed foreign assistance for Stage 2 and accelerate long-overdue flood defenses in Iloilo City.