When hope amounts to sheer hopelessness

As regards the serious drainage problems along esteros and rivers – their banks and even beds in some waterways, like, the upper Mahiga Creek – what appears addressed by LGUs in bureaucratic delays, are the squatters per se. Mandaue City for one, has a 6.5 hectares relocation site; but their bureaucratic requirements especially involving national agencies, snag the implementation.

 More than the squatters on the riverbeds and their banks, including violators of the 3-meter easements, what about small land owners residing beyond the banks and easement areas yonder and along the riversides?

 Along lower Mahiga Creek, for example, these lot owners and their houses, also including small lot lessees with their “payags”, are still continually flooded from its perennial overflows even during ordinary rains. The creek bed is now so shallow – only a couple of feet in some sections – that the poor residents have no peace of mind when looming clouds threaten to fall especially in late afternoons and evenings. When flooding occurs during late nights when the residents are asleep, panic often ensues as sudden overflows awake them.

 To depict the emergency, the flood waters inundate the areas along Mahiga Creek much beyond the 3-meter easement up to a dozen feet deep. After the flooding, flood waters stay and, very slowly ebbs that take days to dry up. Residents get wet, including their simple household appliances, pots and pans, clothes, and their congested quarters. Some have elevated their houses, but to no avail.

 Those who could afford with humble houses to rent out, they had moved out to safer grounds elsewhere. What about those whose houses are built for permanent residence for their growing families and clans, or those other small “payag” lessees who can’t afford to move out? In short, squatters are better who get relocated.

 One knows of natives of Subangdaku who are now continually pestered by the floods and have stayed put. They are the poor Supangans, the Montejos, the Fontanozas, some of the Señidos, the Corteses, and a host of others located up to the bridge at the Panagdait sector. In short, they have no other choice but to stay put, big floods and high waters, no matter.

  Given the forces of nature beyond control with the worsening climate change, and given the helplessness of the poor residents, it appears that what is left as the last hopeful resort is dependent on the affected LGUs’ action, if any. For the Cebu City and Mandaue City governments, again, given the bureaucratic syndrome, it appears that immediate remedial measures are at snail’s pace, if at all.

  Obviously, the Mahiga Creek delta, at its mouth, has been started by Cebu City in clearing the squatters and the dredging, but for the upper stretches of Mahiga Creek, especially on the Mandaue side, the flooding problem still persists. Fortunately for Cebu City, its side of upper Mahiga Creek isn’t congested with residents or illegal settlers along its bank.

 Say, how long does it take to clear the entire Mahiga Creek, particularly the 3-meter easement stretch? Obviously, this factor could be a reasonable ground that the dredging of the highly silted bed could not be implemented. But, is there no way that some portions or sections of Mahiga Creek be partially dredged, like that very shallow section at that big oil company? If one could be right, there are small dredging machines which could be used, that is, without awaiting the big dredging equipment to be able to undertake the much needed dredging works.

There’s that old and optimistic saying that hope springs eternal, nevertheless, to those continually at the mercy of flooding and can’t afford to move out, it seems that vague hope amounts to sheer hopelessness.