Marcos seeks to overhaul flood control scheme
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is seeking to revamp the country's flood control systems which he said have been overwhelmed by recent typhoons
In an interview with reporters in Batangas last Monday, he said the existing FCS were not built to handle the sheer amount of rainfall from Severe Tropical Storm ''Kristine''.
"Let us look at the statistics. During 'Ondoy' the rainfall was 400 plus centimeters. For 'Kristine', the rain fall is about 700 plus (centimeters). Almost double of that of Ondoy," Marcos said in Filipino.
"Our flood control--we were just overwhelmed. We have flood control (systems), but they cannot handle (the recent floods) because in the entire history of the Philippines there is nothing like this," he added.
Typhoon Ondoy hit the country in 2009, which resulted in over 400 deaths.
Marcos said the government is ready to cooperate with any investigation on the its budget for flood control.
Senator Imee Marcos, called for an investigation on the implementation of the P132 billion Bicol Flood Control project. Bicol was among the regions, which were severely affected by ''Kristine''.
The reported casualties from ''Kristine'' and Typhoon ''Leon'' reached 150, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
This was the highest number of casualties from tropical cyclones, which hit the country in the last 10 months. DMS
