Estero slums to be cleared as part of flood master plan

A government plan to move low-income families from areas near waterways in Metro Manila will be implemented next year.

The displacement of about 16,000 families in “estero slums” will be part of a bigger initiative to help residents of Manila deal with perennial flooding.

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson and Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Francis Tolentino met yesterday to form a committee on the issue – and their three agencies will carry out the plan.

“By the next rainy season, we should have already addressed this. There will be bigger improvements every rainy season,” Roxas said, according to the Inquirer. He declined to give a timetable on when the families would be moved though.

Roxas said that about 16,000 families currently live along waterways and esteros in the capital, most along San Juan, Pasig, Tullahan, Manggahan, Tripa de Gallina and Maricaban rivers.

Singson said that the slums along these six rivers would be moved as part of a P5 billion flood control master plan.

Tolentino said that local governments will be responsible for the relocations and that Navotas, for example, had already asked for MMDA’s help.

The MMCDA chairman said that 80-85% of estero slum residents had agreed to be moved.

“These families know they are already in the program. We are already conducting social preparations,” Roxas added. “We expect them to understand that the relocation is also meant to care for them. They are at Ground Zero if these waterways swell.”