MANILA, Philippines - Unprecedented floods have gripped Cotabato in recent weeks following incessant rains.
    
Officials admit that the flooding is not like anything the province has ever seen.
    
"It is the worst I have seen in my 50 years staying on and off Cotabato City," said  Bishop Orlando Quevedo, Head of the Presidential Task Force on Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development on ANC's "The Rundown" on Monday.
    
Compared to the flooding in Cotabato in 2008, the flood level this year, he said, is nearly half a meter higher than the 2008 record.
    
On Wednesday, President Benigno Aquino III personally checked on the condition in flood-hit Cotabato City and efforts to remove water hyacinths under the Delta Bridge in the Rio Grande de Mindanao.

Nine hundred families are currently taking shelter in Cotabato's central schools, and 8,000 more across various public elementary schools. Reports said they have problems with food provisions and water.

Negligence

Officials blame the floods on the water hyacinth infestation in the province which has blocked the natural flow of water to other tributaries. They also blame it on negligence as officials have allowed the aquatic weed to grow uncontrollably. A total of 1.5 hectares of some 20 hectares of water hyacinths that had accumulated in the Rio Grande have yet to be cleared to allow water to flow out to the Ylana Bay, eventually allowing the floods to recede.
    
The water hyacinth is an aquatic weed that has long grown in the Liguasan Marsh and which now threatens to overtake the Rio Grande de Mindanao and Cotabato City itself.
    
Sultan Kudarat is already inundated because of this same phenomenon.
  
Alarmed over the situation, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has expressed readiness to dispatch its troops to help declog the river.
    
Quevedo noted that the Liguasan Marsh is a natural habitat of water hyacinths. He admitted that every rainy season we have experienced the flow of the water hyacinth but not in this quantity, where 20 hectares have clogged the river under one of the two bridges.

Constructive uses

Despite its destructive potential, Quevedo said water hyacinths also have constructive uses. Other countries use basic material from the aquatic weed as pulp for paper.
    
"There are two ways of using water hyacinth: one is the small cottage industry, for weaving, and after the typhoons in 2008, the local government in the city began having people weave mats. However, this is not very significant amount of water hyacinths.
    
"One of the long-term solutions we have is the proposal in the master plan being drafted by the national government in the Task Force Mindanao River Basin, for the use of water hyacinths for the dentro-thermal power project. It will gather water hyacinths in the Kabuntalan area and use that for the power plant producing coal briskets. There will be a structure to gather the water hyacinths," Quevedo explained.

Quevedo said the national government will have to look into the long-term solution for water hyacinths in the province. He added that government partners can help finance the project.
    
Quevedo said the floods could subside if rains hold up in the next few days, but added that more rains can dislodge the water hyacinths from the Liguasan Marsh and send it floating to other tributaries.
     
For now, Quevedo said, they have developed an alert system to inform the Public Works and Highways Department of the status of the Rio Grande and the Muntaka rivers and efforts to clear it.  
    
Meantime, massive deforestation in the Mindanao River basin, Quevedo admitted, has contributed to the heavy siltation in the Rio Grande.
    
"Only 10% forest cover is left of the Mindanao River Basin. There must be a systematic reforestation of the Mindanao River Basin to prevent the silt from going down to the rivers. The DENR [Department of Environment and Natural Resources] is looking at systematic reforestation in the area," Quevedo said.