MANILA - The Climate Change Commission should improve watershed management to reduce the damages of disaster on local communities, Sen. Loren Legarda said recently.

In a conference on climate change adaptation held in Sultan Kudarat, Legarda said Mindanao should be a starting point. She cited the case of Allah Valley, an agricultural hub, which is exposed to flash floods and soil erosion. It traverses the provinces of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.

Legarda, author of the newly-enacted Climate Change Act, shared how continuous downpour caused massive erosion in Allah Valley in 2008, leaving 30,000 hectares of irrigated rice land destroyed and 65 barangays affected.

According to the Allah Valley Landscape Development Alliance, a coalition of local officials and organizations, the valley’s condition started to deteriorate when it was inundated with the overflow of water from Lake Maughan/Holon following torrential rains in 1995 and 2002.

These 2 disasters destroyed 500 million crops and affected 20,000 families across 11 municipalities in the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao.

The destruction of Allah Valley poses agricultural problems since it channels water to farmlands with crops ranging from rice and corn to bananas and pineapples.

According to a villager whom Legarda talked to, unpredictable weather pattern has made farming difficult in the areas surrounding the valley. The loss of livelihood had ripple effects on food availability and education. Children have stopped going to school and food has become scarce, Legarda noted. Families from nearby Lambayong village were also displaced.

Unhampered deforestation in uplands was blamed for the situation, as the lack of trees caused massive soil erosion.

Allah Valley is not an isolated case, however. Legarda said monsoon rains, which account for 60% percent of the rainfall in the country, are “responsible for most of the soil erosion and sedimentation problems in the watersheds.”

With the threat of climate change, the intensity of rains is expected to increase. In turn, more rains raise the risk of watershed devastation.

The Climate Change Commission, tasked to coordinate and consolidate adaptation and mitigation programs across the public sector, should support research on local solutions and provide financial capacity to groups who can bring about on-the-ground strategies for watershed preservation, Legarda said.

The Commission, to be headed by the President, should tap local communities for solutions—a principle fostered by the Climate Change Act.

“One basic premise of this useful legislation is that locally-designed initiatives can provide an effective way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability objectives,” Legarda stressed.