MMDA: Create bureau to monitor Metro drainage system

The chair of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has pitched another idea to solve the worsening flooding problem in the metropolis, this time by creating a new department that will be in charge of managing the capital’s drainage system.

MMDA chair Francis Tolentino already has a name for the new agency—the Bureau of Drainage Systems—which is patterned after Hong Kong’s Department of Drainage Services.

“We are proposing that the work of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the local government units and some private subdivisions pertaining to drainage systems be centralized in one department,” Tolentino said Sunday in the agency’s weekly radio show.

The bureau, a separate entity, will be in charge of the maintenance, operation, repair and construction of drainage pipes all over the metropolis. “We have 897 kilometers of drainage and as of now, the MMDA is not informed about the design, [repair or maintenance schedule],” he said.

Tolentino has always blamed the flooding problem and the resulting traffic jams on the drainage maintenance projects of the DPWH, among other things.

Last June, he criticized the department for the unfinished drainage and road repair work that caused heavy flooding on major roads. He also noted that whenever a portion of the drainage is clogged by trash or needs fixing, it ends up affecting almost the entire system.

“If a meter of these drainage pipes is not working, floods and traffic jams follow next. We need one bureau to focus and act promptly on these,” he said.