Merrera: No Issues Vs. Cong. Cojuangco

ON THE SEAWALLS

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

BINMALEY, Pangasinan – The mayor here has no beef with Pangasinan 2^nd District Rep. Mark O. Cojuangco on the stretches of seawalls being built at the shorelines here and in Lingayen town.

Mayor Pedro A. Merrera said that what offended him during the public hearing called by the sangguniang panlalawigan (provincial lawmaking body) in September 14 was when the engineers of the Department of Publics Works & Highway (DPWH) designed the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sheet file's walls that could not stop the plunging waves that cause the flooding of the residential areas of the two towns.

NO BEEF. Pangasinan 2nd District Rep. Mark O. Cojuangco (left) and Binmaley Mayor Pedro A. Merrera.

The seawalls are the pet project of the Congressman.

The DPWH, Merrera denounced in that hearing, made a mistake when it designed a slope sea wall instead of the straight or curve seawall.

The mayor is a former District Engineer of the DPWH in Quezon City.

The slope seawalls, he explained, could not prevent the plunging waves to go ashore and flood the dried land and residential areas.

“Ang ating pinuprutektahan iyong mismong karagatan na once the swash that is the plunging wave na tinatawag the current na kung ginamit mo doon na slope seawall swash lang iyan papunta sa kabila. So wala ring kuwenta iyan dapat ilagay nila doon is more curve seawalls,” he said.

Merrera said he did not see any file bearing on the seawalls built on the seashore of his town. He doubted if the DPWH considered the per square inch of the swash of the waves against the walls. He questioned too the small three inches in diameter pipeline constructed by the public works to mitigate flooding on the residential areas near the shoreline. The pipeline is where the flood water enters and exits to the sea.

The proposed P1.7 billion 10 kilometers seawalls become acrimonious because opponents cited that the following civil, administrative and criminal offenses have been committed by the executives of the DPWH:

 They deviated from the purpose of the Tourism Road Infrastructure Program ((TRIP) provided in the General Annual Appropriation of 2023 of the Republic of the Philippines that gives P75 million budget for the bay walk in the stretches of Lingayen and Binmaley. The multi-million pesos’ allocation is for the construction or improvement of access roads leading to declared tourism destinations. Examples of TRIP are drainage construction, tree planting, and asphalt overlay;

They committed Technical Malversation. The crime has three (3) elements: "(a) that the offender is an accountable public officer; (b) that he applies public funds or property under his administration to some public use; and (c) that the public use for which such funds or property were applied is different from the purpose for which they were originally appropriated by law or ordinance (Article 220 Revised Penal Code of the Philippines);

They violated the Presidential Decree No.156 Series of 1993 known too as “Proclaiming Lingayen Gulf As An Environmentally Critical Area. The Decree says Lingayen Gulf is an area to be devoted to sustain production of fish and other marine products, preserve genetic diversity, protect natural features, and enhance outdoor recreation; and

Their failure to acquire Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on an area which bar them to create a wall because there was no significant flooding – as the sand dune stops the waves according to protest leader retired Col. Sonny Verzosa.