By Elena Cabatingan
Retired teacher
Barangay Tisa, Cebu City
The Cebu City Council deserves credit for asking hard questions about flooding and for pressing developments to comply with the city’s flood-mitigation requirements. But as a concerned resident of Cebu City, I have to ask: why does so much of the discussion center on Monterrazas?
Guadalupe is not the only area that floods. Communities in Labangon and Tisa, including La Paloma, have also seen roads overwhelmed during heavy rains. For the people living there, flooding is not a political issue or a technical debate. It is real and frightening.
Are all hillside developments getting the same scrutiny? The city earlier indicated that other developments would also be looked into. What became of that? Have other hillside projects been asked about their stormwater measures and whether their drainage and flood-mitigation systems work as intended? If hillside development is the concern, these questions should be asked of everyone.
The public also needs someone to explain all this plainly. What is a detention pond, and how does it work? How should its capacity be computed, and what is the right capacity for a site of a given size? When officials and experts present different figures, whom should the public believe? These are engineering questions. They should be settled with transparent data and independent expertise, not competing claims.
What is the city doing about the flooding itself?
Drainage canals and culverts across the city are routinely clogged with garbage. Can the city’s drainage network handle the water flowing into it? Where are improvements being made, and which communities are prioritized? What is being done to keep solid waste out of our waterways?
Accountability should go both ways. Developers must comply with regulations. The city must also deliver the infrastructure and services that protect its residents. Even our communities have a responsibility to ensure that trash does not end up in the drains to avoid clogging them.
Hearings and investigations have their place, but residents watching floodwater rise outside their homes need drainage that works.
If the goal is truly to protect Cebu City from flooding, why stop at one development? Why not examine every development that affects the city’s waterways, review the entire drainage network, and bring in independent experts who can explain the science in terms ordinary residents understand?
This should not be about defending one developer or targeting another. It should be about whether the same rules apply to everyone, whether decisions rest on evidence, and whether the city is doing enough to protect its people.
