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Hontiveros: Illegal Logging Contributed to Flooding: Sen. Risa Hontiveros says illegal logging and land grabbing at the upper portion of the Marikina watershed and the Sierra Madre might have contributed to the flooding of Metro Manila during Typhoon Ulysses last Nov. 11. Hontiveros said environmental conservation experts noted that logging had massively diminished the capacity of the mountain range to buffer the National Capital Region from the ravages of the strong typhoon. “It’s of absolute necessity to probe the flood control management of the government, vis-à-vis our climate vulnerability, including the whole system of the dams. It is important to understand the deeper causes of the flooding, including the deeply-rooted causes…the ecologically destruction, neglect and inequality,” Hontiveros said during the hybrid inquiry on the country’s flood control programs and harvesting of rainwater runoffs Wednesday, November 25, 2020. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)