“CAN Cebu City cope with "Ondoy" typhoons?” asked the column, “Floods, Gravity--and Walruses.”

“Barely, I think,” emailed Ms. Libia Chavez. “I look out my window in Banawa and see the hills cut for more luxury houses. How would these cut hills fare when heaviest rains come”? Triple the P10 million “emergency allocation” the City Council ok’d. That wouldn’t dam a deluge.

Those bald Cebu hills flag disaster ahead. Are we blind? Or do we refuse to see? Flood victim doles, after all, are no substitute for a scientifically-designed program, installed before disaster strikes.

Sun.Star accepts donations for victims of Typhoon Ondoy

When Tomas Osmeña first became mayor, City Hall didn’t have flood control systems or “greening” programs. Now, his third term is ending. Under his watch, the city didn’t come up with plan or trees. Nada. Thus, Cebuanos remain vulnerable.

Water ignores boundaries, governors or mayors, Ms. Chavez added. “Rains, typhoons, earthquakes are acts of God.” But the “Ondoy” destruction, seen in Metro Manila, “are our sins of omission and commission.”

They’re also previews. Cebu would look like that if a storm meanders from usual northward tracks and slams us. In November 2007, typhoon “Lando” barreled into Cebu, catching everybody off guard. Over 4,000 perished when typhoon “Uring” (Thelma) savaged Ormoc in 1991.

“Are we just all waiting for the apocalypse?” Ms. Chavez asks. “So what should sitting ducks do?”

Scramble backwards into the past? Osmeña, for instance, would retain the run-down Cebu South Bus Terminal. He’d padlock instead the modern, well-policed terminal.

The old station served as “hangout for muggers, thieves, uwat and bodol-bodol gangs,” columnist Bobby Nalzaro notes. “Inside, anarchy prevailed” as dispatchers to drivers jockeyed for advantage. The new terminal, in contrast, resembled US Greyhound stations. Passengers “felt secure inside” with efficient service.

The mayor tries to explain this bizarre preference for chaos. That his pet peeve, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, vastly improved terminal services is irrelevant. Capitol levied an entrance fee of five pesos (roughly two US cents). “This is extortion,” Osmeña fumed.

If this be “extortion,” let’s have more of it. Indeed, as Asian Development Bank’s Remedios Paningbatan writes in “Robinhoodlum and his Band”: These (are) "caricatures of men--too bad to be real. They bear titles like "Mayor," "General" and worse, "President."

“Where on earth did these people come from? What do their grandchildren think of them? Are they breeding a new generation of Filipino crooks, with maybe a tad more style but equally negligible conscience?”

“I’m an ordinary citizen. And 30 percent of my earnings go to the nation's coffers. Like others, I complain, because our government does not provide enough basic services I expect and deserve. Rutty roads, poor educational system, poor social services, poor health services, poor everything. But nothing happens.”

Early on, Osmeña would gleefully bestow kalabasa (squash) awards on those who, he claimed, didn’t serve Cebu well. Before waving goodbye to City Hall, shouldn’t he hand kalabasas to those who left Cebuanos hostage to future storms–-not to mention 183 vigilante killings, growing water shortages, decaying infrastructure and illegal towers?

Fair is fair. “It’s not enough to say goodbye, Mr. Mayor” Señor Alkalde. No basta decir adios.

(juanlmercado@gmail.com)