Signs of the times!

I do not wish to speak of the biblical "signs of the times" because that subject is far too profound for me to dwell on. Reading the Bible, quite sadly, is not my cup of tea and I cannot pretend to know anything about it. The limited literature that I have had the opportunity to attempt to understand is in the area of constitutional law, not the Bible. But, yes, I have heard of the signs of the times and to skirt the branding of hearsay, these are observable events that I refer to.

These signs that I speak about are those which the cameras of international television companies bring to our homes every now and then. For example, there was the tsunami that was caused by the break of a part of the earth's plate along the island of Sumatra. The catastrophic waves that devastated distant places like Thailand and Sri Lanka, in December of 2004, killed more than three hundred thousand men, women and children. Another example of my kind of the signs of the times happened in March 2011. Many modern cities in Japan were wrecked under the force of another raging tsunami that was triggered by a magnitude 9.6 earthquake.

If we look at the map, we can argue that Cebu City is protected from a tsunami-like disaster. Thank God, our city is not geographically open to any conceivable turbulent sea. There is the Mactan Island, a kind of rock formation that separates us from an open sea. This island that can bear the brunt of tall waves that may be spawned, God forbid, by an earthquake many people call as the "big one".

But, the signs of the times showed that Cebu City may not be spared from sudden rising of waters. There were two such floods that hit our city recently when waters reached many homes that had never experienced any inundation in the past. What should make it doubly alarming is that the rains that deposited the unprecedented volume of water on our land were not part of any storm system.

The city administration should read these signs of the times with a sense of urgency, if not panic. Our city must adopt measures not in anticipation of tsunamis but more realistically to counter sudden surge of flood waters.

We are currently witnessing an ongoing operation that aims to clear the natural waterways within the city of unauthorized intrusion into their banks.  The administration seems bent on removing everything that impedes the flow of water. Such government action deserves our praise although, it is only accomplishing what to me is just a part of a more comprehensive plan.

What the city needs now is a much bigger concept to prevent floods. Its dredging the rivers and widening their banks is a move in the right direction because it increases its capacity to absorb heavy volume of water and flush it to the sea. But, it will certainly be more ideal that it works on a system that catches the waters from cascading down our mountain areas. Waters from higher elevations of the city must not reach its lower parts.

Singapore, is probably the leader in this kind of defense against floods. Let us take a look at what it does. It employs a remarkably simple process. The Singaporean government has invested funds to ring the city with a man-made underground river. Big volumes of rainwater are channeled away from the streets and directed into these subterranean rivers. There, they are stored to maintain the level of freshwater and kept for future use.  When the volume of contained water reaches high levels, machines pump them out into the sea.

Cebu City, for reasons of economy, may not follow the elaborate Singaporean model. But yes, the theory is applicable. We only need to dig rivers to surround the city.  These man-made waterways must be wide enough to absorb the waters that come from mountains. When this is done, we may have accomplished something that the signs of the times have taught us to do.