Nueva Ecija floods leave P336-M crop losses, infra damage

PALAYAN CITY — Flash floods that have swept through Nueva Ecija this week have left at least P336 million in infrastructure damage and agricultural losses, provincial officials said.

In Isabela, one of worst-hit provinces in Cagayan Valley, infrastructure damage and crop losses were initially placed at P600 million, prompting the provincial board to declare a state of calamity.

Of Isabela’s 35 towns and cities, Ilagan, the capital town, suffered the most with at least P150 million in losses in palay and corn crops, vegetables and fisheries and damage to irrigation systems.

Nueva Ecija provincial agriculturist Serafin Santos told The STAR that the floods destroyed P336.176 million worth of agricultural crops, inundating 5,000 hectares planted to onions, 1,000 hectares planted to vegetables, and 6,530 hectares of ricefields.

Heavily affected were the onion-producing municipalities of Bongabon, Sto. Domingo, Rizal, Gen. Natividad and Llanera as well as the cities of San Jose, Cabanatuan and Muñoz.

The onion industry in Bongabon, considered the country’s onion bowl, suffered tremendously after more than 2,500 hectares of onion farms were submerged in floodwaters, causing about P72 million in losses.

The town also lost P60 million in onion crops during a spate of calamities in 2004.

Bongabon Mayor Amelia Gamilla said the floods triggered by days of continuous rains this week destroyed about 90 percent of onion crops in his town, leaving only 450 hectares unaffected.

Most of the onion crops left to waste were either about to be harvested in a few weeks or were still in the bulb formation stage.

Bongabon town supplies at least 25 million kilograms of red creole and yellow granex onion varieties.

Also destroyed in Bongabon town were 174 hectares planted to hybrid rice and 149 hectares planted to in-bred rice.

Gamilla said they have forwarded a request to the regional office of the Department of Agriculture to provide fungicides and vegetable and corn seeds to the affected farmers.

Some 340 families in the flooded Bongabon barangays of Palomaria, Larcon, Tugatog, Pesa and Ariendo have remained isolated.

GMA-7’s Kapuso Foundation has distributed relief goods and used clothing to 1,050 families in the town.

Gamilla said the flooding worsened due to the failure of the national government to repair a 500-meter portion of the Digmala protective spur dike destroyed by the December 2004 flash floods.

He said they promptly sought funding assistance from the National Disaster Coordinating Council after the dike was breached, but no funds were released at all.

Gamilla recalled that they referred the matter to President Arroyo when she visited the province last year.

The NDCC, to which the President had forwarded their request, said no funds were available for the dike’s repair, Gamilla said.

Engineer Manny Alejo, of the second district engineering office of the Department of Public Works and Highways, said at least P45 million is needed to repair the dike.

Aside from Bongabon, also flooded were villages in the southern towns of Gabaldon, Zaragoza, Rizal, Peñaranda, Laur and Cabiao, and Cabanatuan City. — With Charlie Lagasca