Scared of the rain? Don’t be there is nothing to be afraid of the rain. It's only when its flow is obstructed by garbage or other man-made structures that it becomes something else, a force of nature that is at once imposing and terrifying, capable of causing floodwaters that overwhelm anyone and anything in its path.
But the rain itself is beautiful. I speak of the rain after reading the Facebook post of a friend, Erna Gamones-Maagad, who said she was sorry about reporting to work and should have stayed at home at RVM Subdivision, Camaman-an in Cagayan de Oro City instead.
Her post woke me up in last Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. That was also the day when an unusually heavy downpour flooded Cagayan de Oro City's streets, stranding hundreds of city residents and vehicles. At the time, it was unclear if Maagad saved her books, photos, and valuables in the first floor of her home.
When I scanned the Facebook pages of all my Cagayan de Oro-based friends, what I saw were posts that showed floodwaters all over, damaged and drenched belongings and mounds of caked mud in the streets. Personally, I was also worried because I knew that my daughters, Honey and Janice were in the city yet I found it difficult to contact them.
Damages may run up to millions of pesos but it pales in comparison to the anxieties felt by many whose homes were destroyed or damaged by the floodwaters. Understandably, these people can only curse the rain and their leaders and I don't blame them.
When I lived in Nazareth village years ago, I experienced the onslaught of rain which soaked my new bed courtesy of a flooding. While working in the media, I kept on asking about the City Government's plans to improve infrastructure including canals. But all I got were evasive answers and the usual retort that my questions were politically angled. Cagayan de Oro's flooding problem is not new--it is an ancient issue.
What is new is that the flooding has worsened. We cannot stop the rain and tell it not to fall on the city since it is part of nature. I thought the lessons from typhoon Sendong were enough to serve as reminders to the city officials and residents to do better in terms of developing, funding, and implementing a drainage master plan for the city.
But apparently, the lessons were forgotten. Maybe I am wrong, I am out of circulation but weren't they supposed to have these urban development plans that include improved drainage systems and better construction of buildings and subdivisions? If there was then then there won't be floodwaters as high as six feet in some places.
Maybe some canals were fixed and palliative measures were implemented but nature found it lacking. Reading about last Monday's floods in SunStar Cagayan de Oro online, it mentioned that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) observed that the “makeshift shacks of informal dwellers along Bitan-ag creek contributed to the situation.” Whenever there is a flood, the overflow at the Bitan-ag creek is always mentioned.
Why was nothing done to address this problem? There were photos of cleaning and dredging the area posted but lately I haven’t seen any post about it. I read somewhere that there was a drainage master plan from the DPWH that was started in 2015 and finished last year. The plan was presented by party list Representative Maxi Rodriquez.
Is the Cagayan de Oro City Government aware of this master plan? Or did the City Government have its own drainage plan? Why is that idea presented days after the flooding? Who commissioned the plan? There should be a summit of engineers to discuss a province-wide drainage plan that can be presented to local officials of Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental. It is in this meeting of the minds that we can know and really understand what is wrong and what needs to be fixed. The problem now, I guess, is that each agency or each congressman has their own drainage plan because they only want money to build infrastructure without consulting all the line agencies.
In the meantime, cleaning all canals should be done. And if the Bitan-ag Creek settlers contributed to the problem, then why not solve it? Why not use police power to deal with them? Is the existing drainage system now antiquated and in need of repairs or a total overhaul? The problem is we remember our canals only when we get flooded.
We could not legislate a law that bans rain from falling in Cagayan de Oro. Nor can any declaration of a state of calamity can help flood victims if it is done only after the fact. I was also disgusted that schools did not act on the Pagasa advisory to suspend classes due to rain that would have allowed students to go home before the floodwaters arrived. Schools should be allowed to unilaterally declare a suspension of classes if they think it would endanger their students.
But all this talk about floods would be forgotten a week, a month or a year from now when the rain is long gone. It would only be remembered the next time the rain comes. It's called a cycle.