Press Release
June 7, 2014

Miriam files bills to address flooding in PH

With the rainy season approaching, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago has filed three bills in the Senate calling for flood prevention reforms and the creation of a flood recovery fund.

Previously, Santiago lambasted officials of the Road Board, following the onslaught brought by Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) in 2009, for the alleged corruption and misuse of some P60.5 billion in road user's tax. The road tax or the Motor Vehicle Users' Charge Tax (MVUCT) is collected primarily for road and drainage repair.

"As a tropical country, the Philippines has always been subjected to dozens of typhoons per year. Countless lives have been lost and damages to properties have accumulated to billions of pesos as a result of these catastrophes," the senator said.

Santiago's Senate Bill No. 394, or the Flood Recovery Fund Bill, provides no-interest loans to Filipinos adversely affected by flooding.

"In order to recover from the debilitating effects of this catastrophe, many of the victims need additional resources outside from their usual income. Not everyone, however, has access to calamity assistance funding," Santiago explained.

According to the senator, the fund will help victims immediately recover from serious damage to property caused by intense flooding.

The senator also filed S.B. No. 1576, or the National Flood Research and Education Bill, in order to address the varying degrees of success in disaster preparedness by the local government.

"A major effort must be done to collate our flood related knowledge as a country and disseminate such information to all stakeholders to minimize the damage brought about by floods. This bill will allow us to establish a centralized effort to study the effect of flooding and how best to prepare and respond to each catastrophe," Santiago said.

Santiago's filed S.B. No. 1724, also known as the Culvert Safety Bill, to prevent accidents involving people who sustain injuries or even die by falling into culverts and other similar forms of drainage.

"This bill will especially protect children who wander into culverts or drainage systems particularly when an area is flooded and the drainage system can hardly be seen. It also seeks to have a uniform standard of safeguards on culvert and drainage maintenance for all government entities," the senator explained.

If passed into law, the Culvert Safety Bill will mandate all concerned government agencies to ensure that each culvert or enclosed drainage system is appropriately covered, that a warning sign is clearly posted at the intake to ach culvert, and that each culvert maintains a hinged opening and closing mechanism to permit emergency services personnel to access the system.

All three bills have yet to reach the second reading in the Senate.

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