Senator Loren Legarda’s Privilege Speech | Rethinking Flood Control: Building a Nature-Based Future After Typhoons Tino and Uwan

Mr. President, distinguished colleagues,

Typhoon Tino claimed 232 lives and affected over 4 million Filipinos, while Typhoon Uwan, still unfolding, has already left six dead and displaced 2.4 million. Cebu bore the worst with 150 fatalities,  followed by Negros Occidental with 42, and Negros Oriental with 21. These tragedies hit close to home—barely two months after a 6.9-magnitude quake in the same region claimed 79 lives.

This is nature speaking to us clearly: our growth has outpaced our safeguards. Beyond the natural calamities, unchecked mining and reclamation, deforestation, unregulated construction, uncontrolled urban sprawl into no-build zones, poor waste management, and corruption in infrastructure and government clearances have eroded the very foundations of safety and sustainability.

But for decades, we’ve answered floods with concrete—higher walls, longer dikes, deeper drains. Yet every storm proves that concrete alone cannot protect us, especially when it’s weakened by corruption, flawed clearances, or lost as ghost projects.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Water Resources Management Office recently evaluated over 4,000 flood control projects nationwide. The findings are alarming:

• 42 percent were problematic — unconstructed, duplicated, or already existing.
• Nearly 30 percent were poorly situated — dikes that block natural river flow, protect idle lands, or redirect water into communities.
• Some projects, the DENR confirms, were reclamation in disguise, converting riverbanks and wetlands into land development zones.

Even more alarming, the DPWH admitted that many flood control projects lacked Environmental Compliance Certificates, despite being environmentally critical and high-risk. Worse, the agency itself acknowledged that some of these structures have actually worsened flooding and, in fact, should be dismantled altogether. We spent billions for safety. Instead, we engineered vulnerability.

To this, science tells us what experience has long confirmed: flooding cannot be solved by fighting nature; it can only be managed by working with it.

The UP Resilience Institute urges a shift from rigid megaprojects to flexible, nature-based, science-driven systems. At its core, flood protection should begin not with cement but with soil, trees, and ecosystems, a layered defense shaped by nature’s design.

Upstream, we must restore our watersheds. Our forests are the first line of defense. When watersheds fail, everything downstream suffers.

• Reforest degraded mountain slopes with native species.
• Establish bamboo and vetiver groves along riverbanks to anchor soil and slow runoff.
• Encourage small catchment ponds and contour farming to retain rainwater and reduce erosion.
• Protect existing forests from illegal logging, mining, and encroachment.

Along our rivers, we must restore their room to breathe.

• Reconnect floodplains and rehabilitate riparian buffers.
• Restore wetlands that once acted as natural sponges, absorbing excess water during storms.
• Replace hard concrete embankments with eco-engineered alternatives—gabions and coconets reinforced with deep-rooted vegetation that stabilize slopes naturally while supporting biodiversity.
• Stop converting riverbanks into commercial or residential zones.

In our cities, we must allow water to find safe paths instead of forcing it underground.

• Build sponge infrastructure: permeable pavements, bioswales, rain gardens, and retention parks that absorb runoff instead of channeling it.
• Promote green roofs, urban tree planting, and household rainwater harvesting systems.
• Enforce the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act—because every clogged canal begins with a single piece of plastic carelessly discarded.
• Respect the National Building Code’s no-build zones and stop granting exemptions for politically connected developers.

And along our coasts, we must bring back the mangroves and seagrass beds that shield us better than any seawall ever could.

To make these happen, governance must evolve as much as our climate has.

• Agencies must act as one under a unified Integrated Flood Management and River Basin Framework, with support from local governments, academic institutions, and communities.
• The DPWH must align all flood projects with DENR-WRMO’s satellite validation database before approving or funding any new structure. Equally vital is the use of multi-hazard maps—integrating flood, landslide, earthquake, and storm surge risks—to guide all planning and infrastructure decisions. These maps are not for mere academic exercise. Without them, we build where water should flow and settle where danger waits. They must be regularly updated with satellite data, used by all agencies and LGUs, and made public to ensure accountability and preparedness.
• All future projects must be science-based, risk-informed, and climate-aligned—not politically convenient or politically determined. It must follow the stream of water based on Masterplans, River Basins, not determined by congressional districts.

We must also enforce what already exists: the Clean Water Act, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, and the National Building Code’s no-build zones.

When told to evacuate, do not wait—never risk your life or your rescuers. Penalties must be maximized for those who steal amid calamity. Floods are not acts of God when negligence is written into the blueprints.

But governance is not only about the agencies that comprise the government, it is instead our people. We must remind our citizens that resilience begins at home.

• Do not throw waste into canals, rivers, or streets.
• Do not obstruct waterways or build structures in riverbeds.
• Support barangay-level waste segregation programs—the barangay is the frontline of environmental protection.
• Gradually reduce reliance on single-use plastics.
• Participate in community-based tree planting, river clean-ups, and disaster preparedness drills.

Needless to state, every dike that collapses is not only a failure of construction—it is a failure of imagination.

At the end of the day, flood control should not be measured by how many walls we build, but by how many lives and ecosystems we protect. 

The legacy of Tino and Uwan should not be another round of bidding for quick repairs, but a nationwide realization that resilience cannot be engineered solely by concrete—it must be grown, restored, and sustained.

We cannot keep reacting to typhoons or floods. We must live with them wisely — with foresight, science, and the guidance of nature.

Harmony begins where greed ends and where governance works with nature.  Thank you, Mr. President.