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Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Malilong: Flood control, anyone?
By Frank Malilong
The Other Side
The rains are back and so are the flashfloods. It rained only briefly late Sunday morning but it was enough to inundate some parts of the city including that stretch of Vicente Urgello Street near the Lourdes Compound. It has always been that way for as long as I can remember.
Every time it rained, the water rose knee-deep so that vehicles practically had to sail instead of roll.
I sound like a broken record but somebody has to ask the question: what is being done to improve drainage and prevent flooding in the city? You don’t have to be an ecologist to notice that we no longer enjoy protection from floods from our balding mountains. I hate to imagine what will befall us if it rains heavily for a long period.
We have been lucky so far. Nature has not visited with its fury, not since typhoons “Nitang” and “Ruping.” But we can’t push our luck too far. We have seen what happened in neighboring Ormoc City and in Quezon and Aurora in Luzon. As the lady of the house loves to say, those who do not learn from the experience of others will learn it the hard way.
For our sake, I hope that our officials are not sleeping on this one.
Years of neglect have allowed the problem to grow but we cannot afford to sit on our fat behinds and blame the past. We need a flood control system that works and we need it now.
I am happy to note that at least we are collecting our garbage more efficiently now. Uncollected waste, especially plastic, usually find their way into the canals and clog the drainage system. But with garbage trucks making their rounds with commendable regularity, that problem has been effectively addressed.
In fact, our streets are not just clean; they‘re also relatively well-maintained. The potholes are a thing of the past at least in the streets where I drive. I must congratulate Mayor Tomas Osmena for delivering this basic service to his constituents.
The condition of the roads will rapidly deteriorate, however, now that the rains are here. I hope that the city’s engineers are up to the challenge or we will go back to the days when our streets resembled the moon’s surface, riddled with craters.
I also hope that the rains will not drive away the traffic policemen and enforcers from their posts. The opening of classes has brought back an old bane — heavy traffic. The situation usually worsens when it rains which is also when the police and CITOM men, with a few exceptions, stage their disappearing act.
Working under the rain is not a pleasant experience, I know, but hey, guys that comes with the territory. That’s what you have raincoats for.
(June 21, 2005 issue)
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