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SHIFTING SANDS, CHANGING LIVES
In some areas of Zambales, so much fate— and fortune—depends on the ever-changing shore
CLAMSHELL excavators dig up river sand along Bucao River while a suction hopper dredging vessel operates at the river delta to open up a pilot channel for efficient water flow. HENRY EMPEÑO
B
Story & photos by Henry Empeño
OTOLAN, Zambales—In a coastal barangay here, three roads approaching the sea abruptly come to a dead end. It didn’t use to be like this, village chief Celso Dagsaan told the BusinesMirror last Wednesday, as he stood where the black asphalt dropped to gray sand. “This has been going on for years,” Dagsaan said, referring to the coastal erosion that gnaws away at the barangay surge after surge after surge during stormy weather, with each push-and-pull dragging land back into the sea. “That’s why we have been putting up a wall of boulders to protect us from the sea. But even this may not be enough,” he lamented. “See those kids out there?” he said, pointing at six girls playing on the seastrand. “That’s where the barangay fish landing port used to be. And somewhere close by was the plaza.” We were standing some 20 meters from the end of the road where he parked his tricycle, below the high tide mark where the wet sand starts sloping down steeply into the water. Dagsaan said this very spot was where the coastal road connecting the three streets stood. Coconut trees lined it, he recalled. “And there,” he said pointing some 15 meters into the sea, “that’s where a big house owned by an American used to be. But you can’t see it anymore; the sea has claimed it.”
Disappearing land
DAGSAAN’S village wasn’t named “Bangan” for nothing. In the Zambal dialect, it means river mouth or estuary, a place where the river meets the sea. “Estuary” came from the Latin words aestus (the
A VENDOR peddles trinkets to tourists at Liwliwa, a surfing community in San Felipe, Zambales. HENRY EMPEÑO
tide) and aestuo (boil), and this village sitting on sandy shore had suffered both the turmoil of the sea’s ebb and flow and the roiling current of the nearby Bucao River that drains from Mount Pinatubo. Over time, Dagsaan said, rising tide has taken out almost onethird of his barangay’s land area. This is characteristic of what are considered as high-energy coasts, where waves are powerful for a significant part of the year and the rate of erosion far exceeds the rate of deposition, or the dropping on the shore of materials carried by the sea. Dagsaan observed that when the Bucao River with its lahar debris rampages downstream during typhoons, the churning river current meets the equally surging sea head-on. This violent union sends river current and sea waves crashing into Barangay Bangan, scour-
BANGAN village chief Celso Dagsaan stands at the boulder wall protecting the barangay from surging waves. HENRY EMPEÑO
through under them and they were hardly damaged,” he observed. The village council had long requested for a seawall or a spur dike to direct the force of Bucao River away, but the project seemed daunting even then. “When Ruben Torres was still congressman [sometime between 2001 and 2004 when the former Labor Secretary who hails from this town represented the Second District of Zambales], we proposed the construction of a seawall here, but [Torres] told us he can’t use all of these funds for just one barangay,” Dagsaan recalled. That’s how big the needed funding for the project already was at that time. Recently, a foundation donated 20 truckloads of armor rocks, but Bangan needed more, the village chief pointed out. “It’s good that a company built a jetty nearby and this has somewhat deflected the water of Bucao River, but still the surging sea is a big problem for us. What we really need is a seawall,” he added. Continued on A2
ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA seen taking a selfie with Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov (right) and Italian physiotherapist Antonio Guglietta on their way to training in Hangzhou could be a sign that the world No. 2 and Asia’s best pole vaulter has his eyes locked on the gold medal at the 19th Asian Games.
A TACO joint painted in eye-catching colors stands out among beachfront establishments in Sitio Liwliwa, a surfing community in San Felipe, Zambales. HENRY EMPEÑO
ing the coast, and eating away at the land. “It’s true that erosion has been reducing our land area, but I noticed that people here only began
losing houses when they began building concrete bungalows,” Dagsaan said. “When people had houses simply built on wooden stilts, the sea only surged past
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 56.9610 n JAPAN 0.3816 n UK 69.5323 n HK 7.2756 n CHINA 7.7890 n SINGAPORE 41.7144 n AUSTRALIA 36.6031 n EU 60.1850 n KOREA 0.0423 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.1884 Source: BSP (September 29, 2023)