Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Editorials: Topography as scapegoat
THE Cebu City Government’s concern over the safety of 16 families in Sitio Dakit, Barangay Guadalupe is something that, at first glance, can be considered laudable.
After the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) described Sitio Dakit as a natural waterway and therefore flood prone, Acting Mayor Michael Rama ordered the families’ temporary relocation to Sitio Mahayahay, an upland area of the barangay.
Not all Sitio Dakit residents may approve of the transfer, but they surely could not fend off City Hall’s determination to protect them from further harm considering the problems they have experienced the past months every time it rained hard.
Diversionary
City Hall’s move, however, tended to shift public attention away from the role played by the implementation of a subdivision project in the upper areas of Guadalupe to the flooding in Sitio Dakit, or to the danger the project posed on low lying areas.
If the area encompassing the village has been a natural waterway all along, that begs the question on why long-time residents only suffered the amount and kind of flooding that damaged some of the houses there when work on the upland project started.
Not mentioning this point would be unfair to the residents who were not only victimized by the flooding but will also have to go through the hassle of relocation.
Danger
It also misses the original intent of the MGB study, which was to guide City Hall on what action to take against the developer if its flood mitigating measures were found to be inadequate and were pinpointed as one of the causes for lowland flooding.
Instead, topography became a convenient scapegoat and a diversion.
What will happen now to the effort to ensure that the development project in the upper area of Barangay Guadalupe won’t pose a danger to people in low-lying areas?
Waterways
Meanwhile, since City Hall, through the Cebu City Disaster Coordinating Council, has started the ball rolling, sort of, in the case of Sitio Dakit, then fairness dictates that it asks MGB to pinpoint other “natural waterways” that have become residential areas.
Flooding in the city may not only have been caused by inadequate drainage system but of many natural waterways blocked by unmonitored construction of houses.
