Cebu: The road to Atlantis

The legend of the lost city of Atlantis is a childhood fascination (along with other paranormal mysteries like the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, Yeti/the Abominable Snowman, etc.) I continue to spend a great deal of time wondering about. True to the urban myth geek I am, at times, I still find myself scouring the web and different books for stories, witness accounts, and whatever interesting bit of information that’s available out there, much like how I’ve always been as a kid—devouring volumes of encyclopedic knowledge on the matter.

 Unfortunately, I can’t help but link my fascination for Atlantis with my fascination for Cebu. Though from a different time and place, both have become progressive cities—and, and, and—both have been submerged under water: one for all eternity, and the other, every five or so minutes after it starts to rain. While Atlantis has been perpetually wiped off from the face of the earth (and no one really knows where it is), it isn’t too late for our beloved Cebu.

 Driving around SM during heavy rains feels like you’re zapped back to biblical times: the whole mall is Noah’s Ark and you’re one of the animals that didn’t make it to the pairing to be saved from the Great Flood! I have, and my gosh, it’s so traumatic.

 I also lament for downtown Cebu. For decades, our family’s stores in the area (particularly in Sanciangko, Colon, Junquera, Pelaez Sts.) would never worry about flooding. Now, just three minutes of torrential rain would flood the streets outside; our branch in Colonnade (Oriente), for the very first time, was conquered by ankle deep waters (twice in the last week)! How many cars parked there, paying Php 15 for the first hour but without any security against flooding, have been submerged after only a few minutes of heavy rain (and CITOM plans to increase parking fees? Gosh! Kapal ha!)?

 Rising seawater levels notwithstanding, I believe the solutions to our flooding woes are mainly political, structural, and I know you know, all within the realm of what is commonsensical.

 I always thought, “sus, if I become mayor of Cebu, I’ll surely invest in those big sewers they have in the States!” (yes, just like those in Ninja Turtles!). Haven’t you wondered why our precious tax money was never spent for making sure we had huge, first-rate sewage systems to accommodate all the waste and rainwater that come with the development we all aspire to work towards? Foresight, where art thou? If we had those, we could also move all the ugly electrical wirings that pose problems beyond mere aesthetics, like safety and efficiency, and integrate them with our first world underground sewage systems. Cowabunga, dude! Is it too much to ask? Probably.

 For the meantime, let’s go back to the more basic political and structural solutions. I feel I don’t need to be mayor to make sure some changes are made. I’m confident the incumbent mayor is open enough to initiate solutions to mitigate flooding in the city, always guaranteed even at the onset of torrential rain.

 Apart from problems attributed to housing developments in Guadalupe, etc., and the lack of discipline of many Cebuanos in disposing waste, a lot has to do with our public works. I’ve written about the tapal-tapal method more than once here, but it seems the city still likes to employ this method in paving our roads. Apparently, we need to choose between good roads and a floodless city, we can’t have both.

 I said before that the tapal-tapal method results in having thoroughfares higher than most establishments and homes, resulting in flooding. True enough, after they’ve improved on the painfully lubak-lubak roads along Junquera and Sanciangko (around USC) with their tapal-tapal ways, with the rains, the floods also come at lightning speed! Our tapal-tapal streets—the road to Atlantis!

 Solutions: better garbage disposal (not only on government’s part, but more so from businesses, ordinary citizens); more political will in relocating illegal settlers in creeks and rivers and in granting permits to housing developments; unclogging sewers and starting to invest in bigger (if not, the biggest possible) sewage systems; and stop the tapal-tapal method in paving our roads!

 If the city government doesn’t do much to solve this problem, I don’t see that they have much right demanding high taxes from our entrepreneurs suffering from low profits and high operation costs because of floods. 

 So before we start growing gills and fins, pursuant to Darwinian laws of evolution, and before we start being featured in Discovery and History Channel as ASEAN’s LOST City of Culture, I hope we—government and common folk—start getting our act together to make sure things don’t get worse than they already are.

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 Tonight on The Bottomline with Boy Abunda: Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla bares his pragmatist views on governance, married life, and being a political dynasty.

 Watch it after Banana Split on ABS-CBN. Encore telecast on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Sunday, 1:00 pm.

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