If rains come, are floods not far behind?

Several months ago, the administration of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama, started to clean the clogged waterways in the city. The area that hugged the news headlines was the Mahiga creek in Barangay Mabolo as there were those who opposed it. I remember that the television crew of a giant network made an extensive coverage showing the extent of the intrusion of homes into the river. The sight seemed to provide the factual support to the plan.

While I harbored a degree of pessimism, I had to admit that the mayor scored propaganda points. It would have been a perfect timing for him to launch that ambitious project because the tragedies that struck in Metro Manila upon the onslaught of Ondoy, and in Mindanao as a result of Sendong were fresh in our minds. Who was not horrified to see video footages showing hundreds of lives lost to rampaging waters? There too, were properties, worth millions of pesos, that were irretrievably swallowed by the floods.  

Our mayor took the lesson to heart, I then conceded. Like all of us, he learned that however caused, floods are always disastrous. Not wanting to repeat the calamities in our city, he planned to clear all obstructions to the free flow of water. If it happened that homes of informal settlers had to be torn down, he directed that it be done. His logic was easy to understand. A difficult choice had to be made. He would rather that few families be temporarily inconvenienced if only to spare the many from an Ondoy type of a catastrophe.

Perhaps, the mayor was naïve enough as not to foresee that his decision could be skewed by political foes. It was possible that he was simply motivated to do good and he did not consider that those who were arrayed against him politically would make use of his move as a leverage to gain patronage among those affected by the project. He woke up to the realization that a case was filed in our courts of law to stop him from demolishing those illegal structures that impeded the flow of water.

The papers that reported the filing of the case did not suppress the fact that the men of the mayor’s future political rival spearheaded the court action. They conveniently used those affected by the project to stall the project and earned media mileage in the process.

Being effectively blocked from clearing the esteros of obstructions, the mayor could not push his plan any further. The structures that actually constricted our waterways and prevented (and continue to prevent) the flow of water have remained in place. Their owners would not want to admit that they have wantonly desecrated the law because to them, it was important to preserve their illegal structures. Indeed, since then, we have not anymore heard of the progress of the case more than the fact that it tied the hands of the mayor.

As I write, the second typhoon to have touched the fringes of Philippine territory is on its way out. But, US weather authorities warned earlier this week that about 31 typhoons are expected to hit our country.

What happens if one such storm would bring to our city the amount of water that Ondoy poured in Metro Manila? We can only pray for God’s protection. Realistically, the Mahiga creek, clogged by scores of houses belonging to informal settlers would be too shallow and silted as to serve as effective waterway.  I fear for a calamity. If that should take place, can we lynch the families who lent their names to some political stooges to stop the clearing of our esteros? Or shall we level our canons at those responsible for tying the hands of the mayor? Grrr.