SAN MARCELINO, Zambales — Nearly three weeks after powerful lahar-filled floodwaters destroyed a crucial bridge and cut off part of Barangay Sta. Fe, local officials are considering a new road that could permanently change how residents enter and leave the disaster-prone community.
San Marcelino Mayor Elvis Soria said officials are studying a possible road linking Barangay Sta. Fe in San Marcelino to Barangay Omaya in neighboring San Narciso, creating an alternative to the vulnerable route across the Sto. Tomas River lahar field. The proposal will still have to undergo a feasibility assessment in coordination with the Department of Public Works and Highways.
A community cut in two
The crisis began on August 9, when days of intense southwest monsoon rains swelled the Sto. Tomas River and sent sediment-laden floodwaters through the area. The current breached part of a dike and washed away the bridge connecting the northern and southern sections of Sta. Fe.
Philstar reported that about 1,000 residents were trapped on the northern side of the community after the bridge disappeared. Lahar and flood deposits also buried at least six houses and partially submerged public facilities, including barangay and school buildings.
Other news organizations have reported higher impact figures. GMA News, citing a 24 Oras report, said around 1,000 families, including Indigenous residents, had been isolated and reported at least 10 houses destroyed and 22 others partially damaged. Because the published figures differ, the precise number of affected residents and homes should be treated as subject to continuing government assessment.
Food delivered by backhoe as residents wait for safer crossing
The loss of the bridge has turned routine travel into a difficult logistical operation.
Government personnel, soldiers and residents have used heavy equipment to ferry food and other necessities across the river. Earlier relief operations also relied on temporary routes across the sprawling lahar field, which authorities warned could become unsafe whenever river levels suddenly rise.
Residents began working on a temporary pedestrian bridge on August 26, using a backhoe to help drive wooden posts into the riverbed. The municipal disaster office has described restoring this immediate connection as a priority while authorities study more permanent infrastructure.
But officials increasingly see a second access route as essential rather than optional.
The proposed connection to Omaya is intended to give Sta. Fe another way out during emergencies, potentially reducing the community’s dependence on a crossing repeatedly exposed to floodwater and volcanic sediment.
There is a major engineering challenge: Omaya sits roughly 12 kilometers from Sta. Fe in straight-line distance, with the rugged foothills around Mt. Pimmayong separating the communities. That means the project is still far from becoming an actual road and will require technical, environmental and financial evaluation.
Pinatubo danger has not disappeared
The timing of the proposal is significant because the threat to western Pinatubo communities remains active.
On August 29, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned that continuing Habagat rains could generate additional non-eruption lahars, muddy streamflows and flooding from deposits left by Mount Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption. PHIVOLCS specifically identified the Sto. Tomas-Marella and Bucao river systems as areas where sediment flows could develop.
The agency said downstream communities in San Marcelino, San Narciso, San Felipe and Botolan could be affected and urged local governments and residents to maintain heightened vigilance and preparedness.
That warning underscores the broader issue facing Sta. Fe: rebuilding the same vulnerable connection may not be enough if increasingly intense rainfall repeatedly sends old Pinatubo deposits downstream.
Zambales damage already runs into hundreds of millions
The Sta. Fe disaster is part of a much wider emergency across Zambales.
Provincial authorities declared a state of calamity this month after infrastructure and agricultural damage from heavy rains and flooding exceeded ₱591 million, according to a provincial disaster assessment cited by Philstar. Officials said damage to critical infrastructure had already affected transportation and the delivery of assistance to several communities.
At the height of the August flooding, more than 7,000 people across Zambales had been evacuated before many were eventually able to return home as weather conditions improved.
Sta. Fe has faced this danger before
The vulnerability is not new.
Research examining communities affected by Pinatubo found that Sta. Fe and neighboring San Rafael were buried by repeated Sto. Tomas River lahars between 1991 and 1993, while a bridge serving Sta. Fe was washed away shortly after the eruption in 1991.
More than three decades later, the latest destruction raises a difficult infrastructure question: Should authorities keep rebuilding crossings directly in the lahar corridor, or create a fundamentally different route before another major flood strikes?
For Sta. Fe residents, that debate is no longer theoretical. Their current dependence on improvised crossings and heavy machinery demonstrates why officials are now looking beyond temporary repairs.
Whether the proposed Sta. Fe-Omaya road can actually overcome mountainous terrain, secure funding and pass DPWH scrutiny remains uncertain.
But with PHIVOLCS warning that Pinatubo’s decades-old volcanic deposits can still be remobilized by intense rainfall, the next major storm may arrive long before a permanent solution does.
Leave a Reply