Series 22: Forever Peace or Forever Wars

I remember corresponding with Archie San Miguel of Bulacan Coast Watch eight years ago on how a Professor Mariano Cariño at the San Beda High School surprised us one day in our 1964 Physics class, when he placed a “batya” or a large washing basin before our class, and filled it up with water.

He then brought in a hollow block and put into the basin, making the water escape wetting the entire floor. “That, gentlemen”, Cariño said, “is Archimedes’ principle of the displacement of water”:

When you submerge an object, it pushes water out of the way to occupy that space. The volume of the displaced fluid equals the volume of the object submerged.

The gut issues in this discussion are:

(1) how much volume of water does 2,500 (3,000 when completed) hectares of the Bulacan land fill displace ? (2) where did the displaced water go?

As early as August 2023, Pampanga Congresswoman Anna York Bondoc raised the possibility that the airport project may have contributed to the recent flooding in the two provinces, as water levels downstream have risen rapidly compared to the past few years.

She said in the vernacular, translated as: ”What we experienced in the past is a slow increase of flood downstream, in about two days. Now it is rapid. In Sto Tomas alone, it took only two hours. This means there is another factor downriver unusually occurring! Would climate change have something to do with this or is it the Bulacan airport?

She recalled that relentless monsoon rains overflowed the Gugu River in 2012, creating powerful currents that breached and collapsed sections of the tail dike connecting San Fernando, Minalin, and Sto. Tomas.

“But there was no breach this time and neither did the Pantabangan Dam release any water, so where did the extra flood come from?” she asked.

Bondoc summarized, “When you dump landfill, you displace water. The proposed airport is 2,500 hectares. You dumped four meters high. So the displaced water is 100 million cubic meters. Where did all that water go?”

“We have to investigate the flood control plan of the airport land fill project. This must be evaluated by the Department of Public Works (and other affected government agencies) so that if it bears fatal consequences, you have someone to answer for them”, she said.”

The solon correctly pointed out that the increased flood has affected the major roads of the fourth district of Pampanga including the McArthur Highway, Quezon Road and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) is not just the problem of her district but has serious implication on the entire Luzon and the country.

The lawmaker asked for the support of fellow Kapampangans as she vowed to fight for their welfare.

“It is frightening to make this public because we may be facing powerful people and vested interests here, but it has become necessary to speak out for public support”, she concluded.

Congresswoman Bondoc was not joking.

That 100 million cubic meters of displaced water, which is double the holding capacity of La Mesa (Dam) Reservoir of only 50 million cubic meters.

That is the aggravation, that was not present before the land fill, which DENR called “horizontal land development”.

Spillover

So, where did the displaced water go?

Archie San Miguel’s AI reconstruction explains it all.

If they cannot find open spaces, most probably they will manifest inside villages and private houses and establishments, in some areas even totally putting them underwater, such as what happened to Taliptip.

In 2020, the Meycauayan city government experimented by raising of the drainage and street in Barangay Saluysoy by one meter to go over the flood level (a policy they eventually adopted into a five-year plan starting 2023).

As a result, my relatives there raised the first floor of their homes also by one meter.

Today, after the Bulacan Airport had raised their land fill by 4 meters, water on their first floor rose to about a foot last week in the midst of torrential rains. That is after two meters of preventive elevation and now they are planning to build a third floor.

I advised them to no longer to go into their pajamas when  strong rains are announced and that they should sleep instead already wearing life jackets.

Empty braggadocio

For starters. Silvertides Holdings admitted the airport is being built on “very low-lying coastal land in Bulacan that was already flood-prone” and that the land had historically been inundated and was later converted to fishponds.

This notwithstanding, an unrepentant Ramon Ang, still denies culpability, and even has the gall to offer a ₱1-million reward to identify the anonymous online critics spreading allegedly false information about his New Manila International Airport, challenging them to step forward with concrete evidence and data.

Well, come on down!

The first truth comes from Ramon Ang himself sharing historical records that Philippine government already studied Bulacan as a potential airport site in 1972, decades before San Miguel Corporation (SMC) began developing the New Manila International Airport.

That was, however,  a half-lie.What he did not tell his audience is that was 19 years before the US military left Clark Air Base following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, and Clark International Airport officially began operating as a civilian and international airport in 1993.

Further, on August 2014, Shizuo Iwata, project manager of Japan International Cooperation Agency’s Metro Manila Master Transportation Study said the country needs to develop both the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and Clark International Airport to cater to the rising number of travelers.

Based on JICA’s study  the total number of passengers in the Clark catchment area will rise to 9.230 million by 2040 from 1.315 million in 2012. This was ten years before a modern new passenger terminal was built and opened at Clark in 2022 to expand international and domestic capacity.

In April 2026, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority awarded a detailed engineering design contract for a second runaway, the construction of which is timed for the end of 2029.

To put it bluntly. the market north of Metro Manila is already being served by Clark International.

However, to put into an acid test all angles the Ninoy Aquino International Airport catchment area, as its total number of passengers is expected to hit 101.485 million by 2040 from 31.877 million in 2012, Iwata said the JICA had looked at eight candidate locations for the new NAIA, namely Angat-Pandi-Bustos (Bulacan), Obando (Bulacan), North Portion of Manila Bay (near Metro Manila and Bulacan boundaries), Central Portion of Manila Bay, San Nicolas Shoals, West Laguna Lake and Rizal – Talim Island, and Sangley in Cavite.

From January 2015 to May 2016, JICA conducted a survey to consider the advantages and disadvantages of various potential project sites for the New Manila International Airport.

All things considered, Sangley Point was chosen to be the most feasible first option. The Western Portion of Laguna de Bay was also considered to be feasible but subject to confirmation of cost estimate.

Bulacan’s coastal areas did not meet JICA bar, as precisely, of glaring environmental and hydrological sensitivities. The province’s coastal wetlands and floodplains function as critical natural drainage basins and river outlets for major river systems draining into Manila Bay.

Obviously, JICA’s framework prioritized sites with lower ecological disruption and pre-existing suitability.

The location was also found less optimal for connecting with high-density commuter and economic hubs within Metro Manila.

But the most important factor was the issue of civil aeronautics which does not only involve infrastructure, airport operations and management, business and finance, safety and regulations.

Sangley Point excelled, on top of all things considered, as it is already an air base with pre-existing and time-tested air traffic designs, systems and controls.

Bulacan does not have any of those complicated, detailed, and hard-to-understand technology. They have to be built from scratch.

The municipal airport along the General Alejo G. Santos Highway in Plaridel town, runs on visual flight rules (VFR) and barely have systems based on instruments (IFR).

How do I know all these intricacies that most people do not even know existed? My late brother, Antonio, was the one who designed the safe, efficient and progressive air traffic control (ATC) system that the Civil Aeronautics Authority has been using since the 1990s for the entire country.

His technical genius has made it possible that no domestic and international commercial airlines operating within Philippine airspace have encountered a mid-air collision between two aircraft in flight, since his masterplan was launched.

Core ATC sensitivities

• Airways Design and Engineering. Think of them as invisible highways in the sky that aircraft follow to travel safely separated from one another and one point to another.
• Error Sensitivity: Minor misinterpretations of radar data, slight miscalculations, or delayed instructions carry severe safety risks.
• Time Deficit and Pressure: Controllers operate under tight time windows where split-second decisions are mandatory to maintain safe aircraft separation.
• Vigilance and Cognitive Fatigue: Sustained, high-intensity concentration drains mental stamina, creating a risk of “vigilance decrement” (a gradual decline in noticing critical radar or audio signals over long shifts).
• Communication Precision: Dialogue between pilots and controllers must use exact phraseology; a misunderstood number, altitude, or heading can compromise flight safety.
• Environmental and Traffic Complexity: Unpredictable weather shifts, sudden capacity bottlenecks, and high traffic volume drastically increase operational stress and cognitive workload

Obviously, Sangley Point which has been used by the military for many decades, has been integrated in the system but not Bulacan.

Concrete evidence and data?

Even if the oligarch does not accept my position, I have however undisputed evidence that he cannot feign ignorance of a plausible mechanism for increased local flood risk, especially because he is mechanical engineer by education.

Eureka! The smoking gun exists in a river flood assessment prepared by his own SMC Infrastructure and DHI Water & Environment which included methodologies, data collection, hydraulic and hydrological modeling, and flood assessments, along with recommendations for mitigation options.

The San Miguel Infra document evaluated flood risks and propose solutions to minimize impacts on the airport and surrounding areas.

The NMIA assessment said that constructing the airport platform would:

• Block an existing 50-meter tidal channel;
• Eliminate the existing site as a floodplain area;
• Potentially force floodwaters toward surrounding rivers; and
• Increase impermeable surface and therefore potentially increase runoff.

Summarized as follows:

“The formation of the airport’s land platform will block off an existing tidal channel of 50m width as well as the existing site as a floodplain area, and force flood waters into the surrounding rivers, which would potentially increase the extent of flooding outside the site. In addition, the airport would discharge surface runoff into the surrounding rivers via 4 stormwater outfalls. The increased impermeable land from the airport will increase the volume and peak runoff discharge to the rivers, further exacerbating potential flood risk to the surrounding river system.”

(www.scribd.com/document/764129019/NMIA-ESIA-V5-Full?)

This indicates that Ramon Ang could not have not known the appurtenant risks yet he nevertheless made a decision to proceed with the massive “land development” out of business considerations, gambling on the lives and safety of millions of residents in the affected areas.

If that is not criminal, I do not know what is!

And the victims are entitled to huge civil indemnity!

Especially because he put humans and the environment in harm’s way by not enforcing the very recommendations of his own hydrological study commissioned for NMIA to “widen surrounding river channels” to mitigate the airport’s potential flood impacts.

The NMIA documents also warned that future development and ad-hoc flood-control works could cumulatively increase flood risk to communities upstream. (www.scribd.com/document/863243794/2-Detailed-Flood-Study-and-Mitigation-Plan-2)

His own study, San Miguel Infra’s own assessment, prove my position that the airport “horizontal development (a term by DENR)” altered the hydrology in Bulacan and therefore creates an aggravated flood-risk effect.

“Maximum flood impacts have been assessed considering a low ocean level condition (MLLW in 2100, corresponding to 0.15m MSL). Under this scenario the bunding of the airport perimeter produces a maximum increase in flood levels upstream of the site of 0.5 m, resulting from the closure of one of the tidal channels and elimination of the airport site as an overland flow path of floodwaters. The impacts are most apparent along the Alipit River north of the site, and the Bambang and Santa Maria Rivers, upstream of the junction with the Meycauayan River.”

This will explain why NLEX was recently flooded in the Meycauayan area.

If Ramon Ang wanted to escape possible criminal and civil liabilities, he should have enforced those urgent proactive, preventive and continuing mitigation.

Instead of being in denial, he should be the first to consolidate his humungous powers and influence to gather data and cause independent modelling not just to monitor the aggravated flooding in particular communities, and for his penance, but do what is necessary to alleviate the miserably conditions he has helped cause to the defenseless masses in the Bulacan affected communities.

Because this “community service” would be ad infinitum added to the already astronomical costs he has encountered and to more costs for the operation and maintenance of the airport and its surroundings, he might as well surrender the entire project to the government for its restoration or rehabilitation to a “nature park” which Mother Nature first intended the location to be, using technologies following the wisdom of the Dutch.

Which brings us to another question – if Ang were in good faith, whatever happened to the NMIA’s proposed semi-circumferential canal that should have been built first before any substantial landfill was done?

Where is the  circumferential canal submitted in 2019 by San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and its contractor, Silvertides Holdings, as part of their official documentation to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to secure the project’s Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).

It was highlighted as a major component of the Bulacan Airport/Aerocity project ‘s flood-mitigation blueprint to address public outcries over severe backflow and regional flooding concerns in the Bulacan floodplain.

Engineered alongside experts from the Netherlands, the canal was proposed to trap and divert inland river runoffs around the 2,500-hectare airport reclamation platform directly out into Manila Bay, while acting as a temporary containment buffer during high-tide cycles.

What about Pampanga?

Ang recently argued that the first flooding at NLEX @San Simon was caused by a blockage around Tulaoc Bridge, which he says prevents water originating from the Pantabangan system (all the way from the east) from efficiently reaching the Pampanga River (all the way on the west).

Dredging the river there will no longer work alone, because Candaba swamp which is the melting pot serving as the natural impound absorbing overflows, can no longer efficiently downstream towards the Pampanga River because some river tributaries have been precisely blocked by the Bulacan airport “land development” causing a backup upstream.

The flooding under that bridge is already the symptom that the swamp can no longer hold the water on both sides of the expressway. I mean isn’t it obvious that NLEX can no longer serve its “dam” function because the “twain” hydrologies that should never meet have already been joined serving as the new temporary impound whenever a certain water level is attained?

Just like the airport surface is meant to be 7 meters high, NLEX must be raised 7 meters high say for a quarter of a kilometer at that Tulaoc location, with culverts or concrete round drain pipes under it as a permanent solution. Or a 250-meter viaduct, whichever is cheaper and faster to construct.

As seen in the video, pumping either way is stupid.

Even without a river, water will seek its own level by underground hydrology returning northeast waters to southwest to exhaust, especially because beneath the entire province of Bulacan is part of the Pampanga River Basin.

The NLEX flood is caused by the rise of water level as the downstream hydrology there has been substantially slowed down by the Bulacan airport land fill, causing this hydrological “upstream” that the NMIA impact assessment had warned about.

Exacerbating Ang’s claims as contributory waters from the Pantabangan system, the Pampanga River has already began overflowing not just on the San Simon side but also on the Apalit side. (NMIA has nothing to do with this. This is more related to the P2 trillion Congressional insertion scandal on public works projects.)

The combined hydrologies at higher levels have now converged under the Tulaoc bridge.

I have personal knowledge of this, as I spent many weekends on the family  resort of my friend Louie Gamboa and witnessed with my own eyes how it could easily be inundated by at least ten feet of an overflowing Pampanga River 200 meters away at Barangay Sta Cruz, San Simon, had he not raised the essential amenities (a house, a restaurant, a rolling garden, a dozen cottages and a big swimming pool); and built an embankment around and an impounding mini-lake beside it.

I can take Ramon Ang for a weekend there if he likes.

Conclusion

Though many of his proposals remain unrealized, Palafox remains optimistic. “We already know the problems. We already know the solutions. We just need the political will and good governance to make them happen.”

The responsibility, he added, lies at every level of government. “We all need visionary leadership, good urban planning, and (faithful) management.”

And if I may add, zero corruption from public officials and mitigated greed from the private sector.

Note: The book “Poverty of Power” has 8 chapters explaining Mega Manila flooding and may be ordered by texting 0917-336-4366. The cost P799 includes JRS delivery nationwide.

     

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