The fundamental reason Metro Manila floods is not engineering failure or government neglect alone — it is that generations of Filipinos built their homes, roads, and commercial centers directly in the valleys, river deltas, and natural drainage paths that nature designed specifically to carry water from the mountains to the sea, Forest Management Bureau (FMB) Assistant Director Ray Thomas Kabigting said Friday.
Kabigting made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program The Situation Report on September 11, using a deceptively simple image to explain what decades of scientific studies have confirmed about Metro Manila’s flood vulnerability.
He said every Filipino child who has drawn a picture of two mountains with a river between them has already correctly illustrated the natural design of a watershed, and that the problem begins when development is placed in the middle of that river rather than beside it.
“Lahat naman po tayo dumaan sa pagkabata, nag-drawing po tayo ng dalawang bundok at meron pong ilog sa gitna. Ang tawag po diyan ay valley. Ang main purpose po niya is to collect po yung tubig na babagsak po sa tuktok pababa,” Kabigting said.
He said the traditional bahay kubo in children’s drawings is correctly placed beside the river, not in it, reflecting an indigenous understanding of where it is safe to build and where water is meant to flow.
Kabigting said the flooding that Metro Manila experiences is in many cases a natural occurrence that cannot be brought to zero risk, because the water that falls on Sierra Madre must go somewhere and the natural path it follows leads through the valleys and river systems that Metro Manila has built over.
He said forests placed at the tops of mountains and along slopes are part of the natural design to slow that water flow, which is why deforestation in the upper watershed directly worsens flooding in the lower areas where millions of Metro Manilans live.
Kabigting said the practical implication for governance is that flood risk in Metro Manila will never be eliminated, only managed, and that the most effective long-term investments are those that work with the natural design rather than against it, including sustained forest rehabilitation in upper watersheds and strict enforcement of setback rules along rivers and flood channels.
