The ‘obscure’ River Basin Management Workplace

The little-known workplace turned a scorching subject through the Senate’s probe into flood management tasks, as committee chair Marcoleta lamented the shortage of a nationwide grasp plan for flood management that the RBCO is meant to be accountable for

An “obscure” workplace, as Senator Rodante Marcoleta calls it, took middle stage final Tuesday, August 19, through the Senate blue ribbon committee’s first listening to on anomalous flood management tasks.

The River Basin Management Workplace (RBCO) shortly turned a scorching subject throughout Marcoleta’s questioning of Secretary of Public Works and Highways Manuel Bonoan over the shortage of a nationwide grasp plan for flood management.

The RBCO, in response to Government Order No. 510, is tasked with growing the nationwide grasp plan for flood management that Marcoleta was on the lookout for. The workplace was created in 2006 via the identical EO, and is an company connected to the Division of Surroundings and Pure Sources (DENR).

Later in 2009, EO No. 816 designated the RBCO because the lead company for all authorities initiatives throughout the nation’s river basins, additional increasing the powers of the workplace and mandating it to combine all nationwide plans.

Almost a decade after the RBCO’s creation, there’s nonetheless no nationwide grasp plan for flood management. Whereas Bonoan tried to elucidate through the Senate probe that his division developed particular person grasp plans for every of the 18 main river basins, he admitted that they didn’t have any important coordination with the RBCO for his or her tasks.

So what does this little-known workplace do? Listed here are some key information concerning the RBCO.

Why it was created

A river basin is outlined by the Water Surroundings Partnership in Asia (WEPA) as an “space of land that drains water, sediment, and dissolved supplies to a typical outlet in some unspecified time in the future alongside a river or stream channel.” 

Managing these basins, in response to WEPA, includes the coordination, conservation, administration, and improvement of water, land, and associated assets within the land and the coastal attain of the basins. That is carried out to maximise the financial and social advantages derived from water assets whereas preserving and restoring freshwater ecosystems.

The Arroyo administration, in keeping with its Medium Time period Philippine Improvement Plan that spanned 2004 to 2010, then deemed it essential to rationalize current river basin and flood management tasks into an Built-in River Basin Improvement and Administration Framework Plan.

The built-in plan is meant to incorporate the next, in response to WEPA:

• Water useful resource administration
• Flood mitigation
• Watershed administration
• Wetland administration
• River safety and rehabilitation river safety and rehabilitation
• Water high quality safety and monitoring
• Data administration and choice help system

Sectors and areas that aren’t within the neighborhood of main river basins, however are nonetheless weak to water shortages, water air pollution, main flooding, and landslides, must also be a part of this plan, in response to EO No. 510.

Consequently, the RBCO was created exactly to guide the event of this plan. 

Powers and capabilities

The RBCO began with three primary powers and capabilities when it was created, as outlined by EO No. 510:

• Rationalize current river basin tasks along with the Division of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)
• Develop a nationwide grasp plan for flood management by integrating current river basin tasks and growing further plans as wanted, along with the DPWH and the Nationwide Catastrophe Coordinating Council
• Rationalize and prioritize reforestation in watersheds

When the workplace turned the lead oversight company for the federal government’s river basin tasks three years later via EO No. 816, the powers of the workplace have been expanded. It’s now mandated to do the next:

• Rationalize and combine all nationwide plans, tasks, and applications throughout the nation’s river basins
• Evaluation and endorse for approval the funding, coming from the nationwide funds, for river basin initiatives by authorities businesses and companies
• Harmonize all nationwide river basin insurance policies, formulate new insurance policies, and create a coverage setting that permits for the efficient administration of the nation’s river basins, with all nationwide authorities businesses and company needing to seek the advice of with the RBCO in planning and implementation
• Sit as ex-officio member within the coverage steering or venture implementing boards as could also be created for the needs of related tasks
• Function the nationwide coverage coordination workplace for native authorities items and nongovernment organizations within the improvement and sustainability of all river and catchment basins
• Function the DENR’s implementing workplace within the implementation, monitoring, and analysis of the DENR’s tasks in river basins
• Function central fund administrator for river basins appropriation supplied beneath the DENR’s funds
• Function the federal government’s central river basin database administration company utilizing a River Basin Built-in Data Administration System

Construction

EO No. 510 states that the RBCO should be headed by an undersecretary for River Basin Management and assisted by an government director for every river basin venture. 

However the DENR’s listing lists solely a single government director for the workplace: Sevillo D. David Jr.

An archived model of the RBCO’s web site — listed within the RBCO’s Fb web page however presently unavailable — additionally describes the workplace because the chief of an inter-agency alliance with a “multi-sectoral and multi-institutional funding company partnership.”

This alliance would ideally equip the nation with “sustainable water assets that meets the wants of its folks when it comes to water provide, irrigation, sanitation, hydro-power, era, recreation, and navigation.”

Finances

In line with EO No. 816, the RBCO’s working funds was included within the budgetary allocation of the DENR and member businesses beginning in 2010. It’s used for “the planning, operations and administration of RBCO together with augmentation of manpower capability to hold out its mandated capabilities and powers.”

However Arroyo’s earlier EO clarified that the funds for river flood management infrastructure and the obligation to implement these tasks nonetheless stay with the DPWH, together with the calamity fund. For reforestation and river basin management administration, the funds is charged to the DENR.

It’s unclear from the DENR’s 2025 funds which funds are allotted particularly for the RBCO, though there’s an allocation for “Soil Conservation and Watershed Administration together with River Basin Administration and Improvement.” 

The DENR’s 2025 Indicative Annual Procurement Plan, nevertheless, does embrace gadgets for the RBCO that are for promoting, printing, and consulting providers.

Current actions

In distinction to Marcoleta’s declare that the RBCO is “sleeping,” data discovered on-line reveals that the RBCO has been conducting some actions inside the previous few months.

The RBCO’s Fb web page — the most recent put up revealed in April 2025 — reveals that the workplace has been conducting conferences and coordinating with the remainder of the DENR, some native authorities places of work, and different nongovernment organizations. Looking out the DENR’s web site for details about the RBCO additionally reveals that the workplace has been actively posting bid bulletins and different procurement paperwork, with the latest one being posted on August 4. – Rappler.com