IN THE aftermath of typhoon Tino (Kalmaegi), the Cebu Provincial Government is moving to revive the long-stalled Mega Cebu blueprint. Gov. Pamela Baricuatro announced the move on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, pushing for an integrated water management system to address both the worsening flooding and a looming water scarcity crisis across Metro Cebu.
The urgency is driven by the severe human cost of the recent disaster. As of Tuesday, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) reported that of the 232 fatalities from typhoon Tino, 150 were from Cebu. An additional 57 people in Cebu remain missing, out of 112 nationwide.
Baricuatro, who also chairs the Regional Development Council (RDC) 7, said the initiative will be presented to the RDC Infrastructure Committee to
prioritize its inclusion.
THE STAGGERING COST OF TINO. The push to revive the plan comes as Cebu reels from the sheer scale of typhoon Tino’s destruction, which has affected millions and crippled infrastructure.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported that 1.1 million families, or 4.1 million individuals, were affected in almost 8,000 barangays across multiple regions, including Central Visayas. The storm’s impact on infrastructure and livelihoods has been catastrophic:
Fatalities: 232 dead, with 523 injured.
Missing: 112 people remain missing, primarily in Cebu (57) and Negros Occidental (50).
Housing: A total of 134,949 houses were damaged and 20,510 were destroyed.
Economic damage: Agricultural damage was estimated at over P157.9 million, while damage to infrastructure reached P179.6 million.
Response: Over P324 million in assistance has been provided to residents, and 111 cities and municipalities have declared a state of calamity.
A PLAN LOST TO POLITICAL LIMBO. The plan Baricuatro wants to revive is not new. It is part of the Mega Cebu Sustainable Urban Development Master Plan, which was crafted back in 2015. This blueprint envisioned a coordinated approach among Metro Cebu’s local governments to manage water resources, prevent floods and control urban sprawl. Metro Cebu, the province’s main metropolitan area, includes the highly urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu City; component cities of Carcar, Danao, Talisay and Naga; and municipalities of Compostela, Consolacion, Cordova, Liloan, Minglanilla and San Fernando.
A central coordinating body, the Mega Cebu Development and Coordination Board (MCDCB), was established during the administration of former governor Hilario Davide III and the late business leader Bobby Aboitiz. However, this critical coordinating board has not been convened since January 2020. This halted the integrated efforts, leaving flood control implementation mainly to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which operated without the inter-local coordination the board once provided.
CONTRASTING VIEWS. Reviving the plan introduces a central debate: Is a coordinated government plan enough, or are officials missing deeper, environmental root causes?
THE PUSH FOR COOPERATION. Baricuatro is focused on restoring the collaborative model. “The goal is to restore inter-local cooperation and ensure that water management becomes a shared responsibility,” she said. Her push is seen as a move to confront the region’s “fragmented urban growth, inadequate drainage systems and growing risks from climate-related disasters.” The Provincial Government’s own 2018-2028 development plan, which adopted “cluster development” and “urban limits,” has seen its enforcement lag.
THE EXPERT’S WARNING. An expert argues that flood control projects alone are a fool’s errand. William Granert, executive director of the Soil and Water Conservation Foundation Inc., said in a news forum on Tuesday that Cebu’s flooding will not be solved unless deeper causes like deforestation and overdevelopment in upland areas are addressed.
Granert warned that there are no quick fixes, noting that political timelines complicate long-term solutions. “We’ve been talking about this for 30 years, about limestone management,” Granert said. “If you’re going to deal with watershed management, you’re talking about 20 to 30 years to establish a good program”.
He also questioned the government’s reactive stance: “Why it takes a natural disaster for government action to take place”.
THE “KARST” IN THE ROOM: CEBU’S GEOLOGY. Granert’s sharpest warning focused on a problem unique to Cebu: its geology. About 60 percent of the island is a karst landscape, commonly referred to as limestone. This geological composition makes the area inherently vulnerable to hazards like flooding, sinkholes and landslides.
Protecting this karst landscape, Granert said, is vital to ensuring proper irrigation and water flow. The problem is that local engineers lack training in karst engineering, a specialized field that deals with these delicate formations.
He explained that karst landscapes contain pores, meaning anything that happens on the surface eventually seeps underground. He gave a stark example of poor karst engineering in Cebu: a case where a mountain cemetery leaked fluids from wooden caskets into the water system, contaminating the water source of nearby residents.
Granert added that building roads, resorts and other commercial establishments in forested areas greatly affects the watershed system. He said unresearched land development, without understanding karst, could worsen environmental risks.
WHAT’S NEXT. For now, the immediate step is political. Baricuatro is set to present the revived Mega Cebu initiative to the RDC Infrastructure Committee. The move aims to formally prioritize a provincewide water management system, forcing a return to the collaborative model that was abandoned in 2020. / CDF, TPM, BRYCE KEN ABELLON, USJ-R INTERN