The House Committee on Ecology technical working group (TWG) chaired by Santa Rosa City Representative Dan Fernandez continued deliberations on House Resolution (HR) 376, urging the House to revisit the ₱18.7-billion Laguna Lake Rehabilitation Project (LLRP), and the untapped potential of Laguna Lake as a floodwater reservoir and as a source of drinking water.
Fernandez briefed the panel on the Laguna Lake Rehabilitation Project that was approved during the presidency of now Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that would have been undertaken by the Baggerwerken Decloedt en Zoon (BDZ).
Following the project’s cancellation in 2011, the veteran legislator, in his capacity then as the chairman of the Committee on Ecology, asked the late former President Benigno Aquino III to reconsider his decision.
Instead, what Aquino approved was the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike Project (LLEDP), which did not push through because there were no bidders, according to Fernandez.
For implementation in the area is the Laguna Lakeshore Road Network (LLRN) Project.
“It is just a complete road network.”
Noting that LLRN Phase 1, initiated in 2018, is set to begin construction by the end of 2023, together with the feasibility study for Phase 2, Fernandez in his review of the project documents submitted to his office, found nothing about the rehabilitation of the lake.
“It is just a complete road network,” he said.
While Fernandez saw residents of the whole region benefiting from the road project, he nonetheless emphasized that “the true essence of HR 376 is for the rehabilitation to have the quality of water enhanced and the capacity of the Laguna Lake be increased, as well. But these two things are not included in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project.”
“I recommend the construction of a spillway, a Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) or a dredging system.”
He stressed that “Ang matter na idi-discuss natin ngayon is paano natin maipapasok iyong component ng rehabilitation.”
Resource person Architect Felino Palafox recommended the construction of a spillway, a Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) or a dredging system.
Palafox recalled his original proposal for the construction of a spillway simultaneous to the construction of the Manggahan Floodway.
“But what happened was that the Manggahan Floodway was built to divert the flood waters from the mountains to the Laguna Lake, hindi ginawang spillway. Kaya I was quoted ‘Laguna Lake is like a toilet without a flush’,” he said.
