A proposed Cebu City ordinance authored by Councilor Alvin Arcilla aims to stop roads from continuously rising due to improper asphalt overlaying by requiring proper scrapping, squaring, and milling.
During a public hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 11, residents, business owners, and Department of Social Welfare and Services Person with Disabilities focal person Precious Boroalba highlighted how raised roads cause severe flooding, property damage, and accessibility hazards.
Christian Felices of the Department of Public Works and Highways Cebu City District Engineering Office stated the agency is awaiting guidance from its Regional Office and legal division to ensure consistency with national laws and standards.
A ROAD is supposed to make a community easier to navigate. But for many Cebu City residents, repeated road repairs are creating dangerous new obstacles, including higher road levels, narrower sidewalks, clogged drainage, and floodwaters reaching homes and businesses.
For wheelchair users, senior citizens, and pedestrians, the problem is especially severe. An uneven or damaged sidewalk becomes even harder to navigate when the roadway is raised higher than the surrounding pavement.
These growing concerns were brought to light during a public hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 11, regarding a proposed Cebu City ordinance aimed at stopping roads from continuously rising due to improper asphalt overlaying.
The measure, authored by Councilor Alvin Arcilla, would require proper scrapping and squaring before patching. It would also prohibit successive asphalt or concrete overlays without milling, scrapping, or lowering the road base.
Former Santo Niño barangay kagawad Samuel Lao emphasized that road repairs should solve problems, not create new ones for nearby properties and pedestrians.
“Road repair should improve the community, not transfer the problem to sidewalk, drainage system, or neighboring properties,” Lao said.
Lao pointed to areas where repeated asphalt overlays raised roads so high that pedestrians were forced onto active roadways when floodwaters covered the sidewalks. He added that local businesses have suffered heavy financial damage when rainwater could no longer drain properly and flooded into their establishments.
For persons with disabilities (PWDs), an obstructed sidewalk can make an ordinary trip nearly impossible.
Precious Boroalba, a PWD focal person under the Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS), stated that the sector fully supports the proposed ordinance. She noted that proper road repairs promote safer and more accessible infrastructure for PWDs, senior citizens, children, and all pedestrians.
The PWD sector urged the city to explicitly require compliance with accessibility standards under Republic Act 7277 (Magna Carta for Persons with Disability) and Batas Pambansa Blg. 344 (Accessibility Law).
Their key recommendations include:
Preserving or restoring accessible sidewalks, curbs, and tactile paving.
Creating temporary accessible pathways for pedestrians during construction.
Conducting thorough inspections before construction projects are formally accepted.
Strengthening coordination among city offices, contractors, barangays, and PWD representatives.
The Persons with Disability Affairs Office also presented photographs of local sidewalks that contribute to both flooding and accessibility hazards, showing how difficult these paths are for wheelchair users to navigate.
The proposed ordinance attempts to fix a major piece of a larger issue: how roads are repaired and maintained.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Cebu City District Engineering Office did not take a final position on the measure during the public hearing.
Christian Felices, chief of the office's Planning Design Section, said the DPWH recognizes the serious concerns involving road elevation, drainage, flooding, sidewalks, and patching quality. However, he explained that the district office is waiting for guidance from the DPWH Regional Office and its legal division to ensure consistency with national laws, policies, and DPWH standards.
Felices explained that the DPWH already requires contractors to mill existing asphalt on national roads before overlaying. This process typically removes about 50 millimeters of asphalt per pass before laying down a new layer of roughly 100 millimeters. The old material is then hauled away to keep road elevations unchanged, though he acknowledged that some roads have still become elevated over time.
He admitted that additional milling or alternative methods may eventually be required to bring road levels back in line with gutters and protect nearby properties from floodwaters. He also noted that high tide heavily impacts drainage in low-lying areas of Cebu City.
The hearing highlighted a key operational gap: the DPWH oversees national roads, while the Cebu City Government manages its own road repairs, maintenance, and asphalt overlaying.
Councilor Arcilla pointed out that several city projects have simply placed new asphalt over existing layers, directly contributing to rising road levels. Because of this, the issue extends beyond basic asphalt thickness.
Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña suggested that Cebu City look beyond surface road repairs and consider larger infrastructure solutions to manage heavy rainfall.
He proposed studying underground detention ponds beneath roads, built with box culverts above them. This would allow floodwaters to be stored temporarily during storms and gradually pumped out afterward.
Meanwhile, the City Council's Committee on Laws, Ordinances, and Styling identified several legal and drafting issues that must be addressed before the ordinance moves forward. These include distinguishing between city and national roads, setting penalties for government personnel and contractors, and clarifying technical terms like scrapping, squaring, milling, overlaying, and patching.
While city officials work out the technical terms and legal framework, Cebu City residents continue to live with the daily impact of how their streets and sidewalks are built. For the pedestrians and business owners navigating these roads every day, the success of this ordinance will ultimately be measured by the visible changes on the ground. CAV