DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines—A text message he received on Wednesday night scared 48-year-old Virgilio Maganes, a resident of Villasis town.

The message said the San Roque Dam in San Manuel, Pangasinan would open a spillway gate in addition to the gate that had remained open since October 11.

"How much water per second? Will we be flooded in Villasis? At what height [is the gate's opening]?" Maganes asked.

When informed that the water volume would just be about 500 cubic meters per second (cms), he calmed down.

"Okay. So it's not that much. May trauma na yata ako, pare. Di ako makatulog (I think I've been traumatized, friend. I can’t sleep)," Maganes said in a text message to a friend.

But Brando Cortez, another resident of Villasis, did not want to take chances.

"I'm moving my family to Urdaneta [City]," Cortez said. Urdaneta is about 9 kilometers north of his town.

Maganes and Cortez had reasons to be afraid.

Maganes' house in Barangay San Blas in Villasis, about two kilometers north of the Agno River, was among the many houses in Pangasinan that were either submerged or toppled by raging floodwaters that shad escaped from the river after breaching several portions of the dike in the town.

Everything in his house was lost. "We'll have to start all over again," Maganes said.

Cortez said he evacuated his family to a friend's house before his house was flooded on October 9.

On Wednesday night, the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council in Pangasinan issued a public advisory saying the National Power Corp. would release water from the San Roque Dam at the rate of 600 cms starting noon Thursday.

Also that night, officials running the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija and Angat Dam in Bulacan also issued advisories that the facilities would start releasing excess water starting Thursday morning due to rains in the facilities' watershed areas.

"In view of breached dikes and still swelling rivers, flooding in low-lying areas and near the Agno River [is] likely to occur. The public is advised to take all necessary precautions," the PDCC Pangasinan said.

Fidel Ginez, director of the Agno Flood Control System based in Rosales town, said the dikes in Rosales, San Nicolas, Villasis, Sto. Tomas and Bayambang along the Agno River were breached when the rivers swelled on Oct. 9.

Maganes said residents of his village have been generally calm despite the news of dam discharge. "Students are cleaning their classrooms in the elementary school here," he said.

Cortez said the same calm atmosphere pervades in Barangay Carmen East, where hundreds of families were rendered homeless by the flood. They now live in makeshift shelters across the road, where their houses used to stand.

Rosales Mayor Ricardo Revita said he received the PDCC advisory on Wednesday night and relayed it to barangay captains of villages along the Agno River.

Revita's town was among the worst-hit areas in Pangasinan after rampaging flood from the Agno River flowed over its dikes and eventually eroded them.

"I'm now on top of the bridge [connecting Villasis and Rosales] and I'm trying to assess the volume of water flowing in the river. I think the river can absorb the water being released now," Revita told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Thursday afternoon.

He asked village chiefs to go around their communities to announce that they should not be alarmed.

Water released from the San Roque Dam usually takes four to six hours to reach Barangay Carmen East in Rosales.

Alcala Mayor Manuel Collado said in preparation for the coming of the dam's excess water, he had asked local residents from three villages along the river to reinforce a portion of an earth dike with sand bags.

"We just wanted to be sure that this dike will not (give way) in case the water comes here," Collado said.

He said he received an advisory about the water release through the town's police chief.

"People here are calm and we have not evacuated anyone," Collado said.

Alex Palada, head of the flood forecasting and warning system for dam operations of the National Power Corp., said the opening of another spillway gate was necessary to release the dam's excess water and bring down its volume to its normal level of 280 meters above sea level (masl).

At 6 a.m. Thursday, the dam's water level was 286.7 masl.

Palada said with an additional gate open, the water will be released at 600 cms.

In Bulacan, rains in the watershed of the Angat Dam in Norzagaray town on Wednesday have prompted Napocor to recommend the release of water at the reservoir, Palada said.

He said Angat started releasing water at 6 a.m. Thursday at a rate of 100 cms. Water elevation at the dam was 213.20 masl, which was near its 214 masl critical mark.

Raul Agustin, special operations officer of PDCC Bulacan, said from experience, the 100 cms of water release will have a very minimal effect in raising the levels of waterways in the province.

He said the risk of flooding in towns along the path of the Angat River—Norzagaray, Angat, San Rafael, Bustos, Baliuag, Plaridel, Pulilan, Calumpit and Hagonoy—is higher if water is released at a minimum rate of 700 cms.

Board Member Ferdinand Estrella, a resident of Baliuag and president of the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) in Bulacan, said residents no longer fear floods or water released from Angat Dam because they are used to these events.

He said a warning system has also been put in place in riverbank settlements to alert residents on evacuation.

Gov. Joselito Mendoza said residents in communities along the Angat River always comply with evacuation orders.

"Sa experience natin, walang tumatanggi o ayaw umalis (In our experience, there was no person who ignored our orders to evacuate)," he said.

In Nueva Ecija, announcements made by officials of Pantabangan Dam that the facility was resuming the release of water did not alarm farmers anymore.

Freddie Toquero, chief of the dam and reservoir division of the Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System (UPRIIS), said the dam would release water at a rate of 220 cms because of the rains on Wednesday and Thursday.

"But only 100 cms will pass through the Pampanga River and the rest will go to our irrigation canals," he said. He said the water release would not pose any danger of flooding as floodwater in many parts of Nueva Ecija had receded.

"The problem now is lack of manpower to harvest rice," said Bernardo Valdez, chief of the operations division of the provincial agricultural office.

There are more than 120,000 hectares of rice land in the province spared by the typhoon and are now ready for harvest, reports from the office of the provincial agriculturist said.

But Valdez said farm hands coming from Isabela and other areas during the harvest season did not come. He said this was because their areas were also hit by the typhoons.

The farmers who harvested their crops on Wednesday and Thursday complained that the buying price of palay had gone down from P13 to P10 a kilogram because of the rains. With reports from Carmela Reyes and Anselmo Roque, Inquirer Central Luzon