“Blame it on the rain, not us.” This was the terse reply of Department of Science and Technology (DoST) Undersecretary Graciano Yumul when asked yesterday to react on the class suit reportedly being prepared by officials of flood-tormented Bulacan against agencies deemed responsible for releasing water from dams during recent typhoons.
Yumul, also the supervising official of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), insisted that massive flooding in Bulacan was a result of heavy rainfall and not the release of excess water from Angat dam.
His view was supported by Roy Badilla, Weather Services Assistant Chief of the PAGASA’s Hydrometeorological Division.
“Floods in these areas (in Bulacan) were not due to the discharge of water from Angat and Ipo dams but due to the huge volume of rain that affected the area,” Badilla said.
Likewise, Yumul cited soil saturation as one of the causes of the flooding in Bulacan.
“I still need to see and understand the details (of the class suit). If other data are available, we will be interested to see them,” he said.
“We in PAGASA work on whatever data we have,” Yumul added, pertaining to the PAGASA rainfall data gathered by Badilla’s division.
COntinue Reading at the Manila Bulletin
