THE recent widespread and deep flooding in Bacolod has put into question not just its drainage and sewage system, but its entire urban development planning framework.
I am not an urban planning specialist, but it doesn’t take one to see and assay the defects behind flooding that has been besetting Bacolod for years.
Ongoing rehabilitation and improvement of the city’s drainage system is only as good as its impact. And the impact doesn’t make the anti-flooding project any better. On the contrary, it has worsened the problem.
Others assert that only some parts of the city are prone to flooding, while not a few say it’s normal for a fast-growing city absorbing all sorts of investments.
Not quite accurate assertions. Flooding in the numbered barangays including the city’s south side barangays Singcang-Airport, Alijis and Tangub is a fact for decades, not only during the rainy season in times of heavy downpours coinciding with high tides. The problem is left unaddressed except for palliative and occasional drainage cleaning and rehabilitation works.
In the past six to 10 years, flooding also caught the old rich and the middle-class subdivisions on the north side of the city. The issue caught the ire of the well to do class groups who staged a series of campaign protests. The issue just died down for a mysterious reason despite the city government’s gross inaction.
In recent years, and again the past week, it hit the near east side of the city, perhaps the worst to date in city’s flooding history.
How long shall Bacolodnons contend with recycled logic-flawed reasoning or rationalization of the city government officials, including its engineering unit and disaster risk reduction teams?
Shall Bacolodnons wait until all possible solutions would eventually be swept away with the submersion of the entire city?
Oh my, it is clear that the core defect is in the urban development planning framework of the city government.
Let me cite a few critical points.
One, the entire city of Bacolod is below sea level and nestled at the foot of highly denuded rolling hills with no significant forest cover except relocation sites and low-cost housing subdivisions and vast sugar farms whose soil has long been sucked and destroyed by chemicals.
Let’s take note as well that Bacolod has been founded at the estuary of Magsungay-Singcang river which already had serious flooding and disaster even when it was then surrounded with excellent forest cover.
Climate change has also been a major factor in the environmental disintegration of the city.
Have all this been considered in the city’s overall and strategic urban development planning?
Two, the city’s north side and east side, hit by recurring big floods in recent years, have absorbed most of the big infrastructure projects, road expansion and now hosts the city’s top business, financial and leisure hubs; yet their drainage and sewage systems have not matched the intensity and density of physical development.
If the south side with fewer infrastructures continue to bear the brunt of the recurring flooding, how much more the north and east sides?
Did the city consider in its urban planning the step by step and even development of physical structures with the appropriate environmental equation?
Three, the city’s comprehensive land use plan (Clup), which by the way needs updating, was so oversimplified in land classification, with little consideration on other important factors in urban development planning, especially clear definitions of special land use districts, special land use restriction zone, height control district, specialized blocks, among others.
Apparently, the city’s urban development planning is more based on and biased for external investments and interests of the rich and famous, and less on geographic and environmental considerations, social protections and comprehensive human development.
Simply said, so long as there are big investments coming in, land developers willing to take the big projects, brokers who make money in between, and local officials who will earn in the transactions, urban development will proceed regardless of the impact on the environment and human habitat.
Well, development of urban, urban or rural is in the first place about human and earth balance, not physical structures planning and management. The same is true with civil engineering; it is not about steel, sand and cement, but about social engineering to make it truly a place for humans to live with harmony, peace, prosperity with dignity.
Bacolod should learn from the urban disasters that hit big cities like NCR, Cagayan de Oro, Gen San, Baguio, Balanga, San Fernando and Bulacan urban centers.
By the way, for the city of Bacolod to be able to come up with a good, balanced and comprehensive development plan, it should first review, update and correct its comprehensive land use plan as it is an important requirement set by the government itself, specifically by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
And no less, as now demanded by DILG, both CDP and Clup must be crafted with the participation of various sectoral stakeholders, and not only by so-called consultants and urban development planning experts.
Building truly human habitat must not be left to the experts, much less the big developers and corporate interests, but must involve the marginalized and vulnerable sectors.
(For feedback, email ombion.ph@outlook.com)