The Best Flood Control Isn’t a Wall, It’s a Home

Iloilo City is running two brilliant, parallel strategies for survival. On one track, we have the Jaro Floodway – a triumph of ecological engineering that, as JICA’s 2016 evaluation proved, has saved the city from catastrophe since Typhoon Frank. It is our “hard” infrastructure: a five-kilometer success story that somehow respects nature.

On the other track, we have the PASILONG housing program. As Mayor Raisa Treñas-Chu noted, after seeing the impact of this year’s typhoons, the city is prioritizing the relocation of residents from coastal and riverbank “danger zones.” This is “soft” infrastructure: a humane, necessary retreat from the water’s edge, creating over 2,000 new, safe homes.

Both initiatives are commendable. Both are essential. But they are dangerously uncoordinated.

The city is winning two different battles while lacking a unified strategy for the war. We are building a shield (the Floodway) and staging an evacuation (the housing) while ignoring the stark warning that “the sinking Iloilo City remains without a comprehensive flood control master plan.”

This absence is not a theoretical problem. It is already costing us.

While we celebrate the JICA-led floodway, we ignore the grim fact that new, “oversized” and “misplaced” DPWH projects have reportedly worsened flooding in more than 90 of our barangays. Good intentions, implemented in a vacuum, become destructive.

The most tragic proof is the PHP 49 million “flood-control with bike lane” project in Tagbak, which nearly sealed a creek. During Tropical Storm Dante, a child drowned there. This is the horrifying, predictable outcome of piecemeal projects operating without a central, science-based plan. When “flood control turns into flood creation,” we have failed.

Our challenge now is integration. These two brilliant ideas—our nature-based engineering and our proactive relocation—must be woven into a single, public-facing document.

This comprehensive master plan must, first, apply the Jaro Floodway’s “listen to the river” philosophy to every single creek, estuary, and drainage canal in the city. No more rogue projects that block waterways.

Second, it must integrate the PASILONG housing program as a core component of flood management. The Iloilo City Local Housing Office must work directly with hydrologists to ensure that relocation sites like Westville Residences and the Uswag Complex are not just on “higher ground” but are part of a city-wide resilience map. Relocation is flood control.

The Jaro Floodway proves we have the technical partners, and the PASILONG program proves we have the political will. We now need the wisdom to connect them. Before Typhoon Uwan or the next storm arrives, Iloilo must unite these successful pieces into one resilient, comprehensive plan.