Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando said Thursday that the release of water from the Bustos Dam was one of the reasons for the intense flooding in the province.

Bulacan was placed under a state of calamity on Tuesday by Fernando due to floods from Super Typhoon “Egay”.

In an interview with ANC, Fernando questioned why the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) increased the amount of water to be released from Bustos Dam from 200 or 300 cubic meters per second (cms) to more than 700 cms.

He said he knew NIA needed to release water because one of the gates of the dam was destroyed and they had to keep it from overflowing.

“I was shocked because they released 737 cms. I called the attention of the engineer of NIA. I will admit, I got mad because the water was already rising. tThe floods were becoming worse and the residents were suffering,” Fernando told ANC.

“So when I learned that they were going to release that much water from our PDRMMO (Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office), I asked them to record a video and we saw the strong flow of water. I’m not saying that it’s the only thing contributing to the floods. Of course, there are heavy rains and some of the water comes from upstream rivers. So when it rains hard it results in a high tide. I’m just saying why did they suddenly release that much water?” he added.

“The truth is, until now, they haven’t fixed the gates of Bustos Dam because what is the use of those gates if one of them is broken. It was just rehabilitated, gate number five. They also need to change its rubber,” he said.

Fernando said the magnitude of the floods from the recent typhoons was similar to “Ondoy”, which hit the country in September 2009.

“The floods from the recent Typhoon 'Egay' could be compared to Ondoy. It’s so similar and it happened again. I think we need flood control measures for this,” he said.

He said Calumpit, Hagonoy, Guiguinto, and some parts of Bocaue were still affected by floods. Jaspearl Tan/DMS