Why Cebu City is underrepresented in Congress

I was still in Manila when I learned that it was raining cats and dogs in Cebu City and in just a few hours later, Cebuano netizens were busy at work, taking photos of areas in Cebu City that were under water. The most notorious is that area along SM City in the North Reclamation, which, I recall always, gets inundated when there are strong rains. I remember getting stuck during one rainy day that it took me a full hour from the police station across the Mazda Showroom just to get to the Cebu Port Authority gate. Thankfully, I was using my pickup truck, which is impervious to floods.

So we got so many photos downloaded to Facebook of Cebu City turning into Asia's Venice. Reading the conversations in Facebook, certain netizens were pissed about this flooding. But someone is more pissed because the flood problem would have been solved had it not been for the quarrel between two politicians. He said city residents now suffer from this rivalry.

Anyway, one netizen posted a copy of an article that came out from The Freeman dated on November 6, 2014 with the headline, "Council Thumbs Down P70 Million Dredging Budget!"

As the report goes, the Cebu City Council controlled by the Bando Osmeña Pundok-Kauswagan voted 7-6 with one abstention to junk the proposed dredging projects in Cebu City that would have "de-silted" many of our clogged waterways. Gads! This news report was two years ago! No wonder the flooding in Cebu City has never been fixed. Ugly politicians have intervened for their selfish political reasons!

One of the reasons that the BOPK councilors rejected this proposal was due to their belief that dredging could not solve or minimize the perennial flooding in Cebu City and therefore a waste of money.

They told the City Council that it is better to wait for the outcome of the Inter-City Drainage Summit, which purportedly aims to create an ideal drainage master plan for Metro Cebu. We'll, thanks to the majority members of the Cebu City Council. We still haven't heard about this drainage master plan and two years after the BOPK councilors rejected the budget for the drainage plan, Cebuanos continue to suffer from the constant flooding of our city streets.

In short, Cebu City lost two wasted years. If the City of Cebu spent that P70 million, it would have helped dredge or desilt many of our waterways, like the Kinalumsan River, Tagunol Waterway, the Parian Estero, the Lahug Creek, the Mahiga Creek, the Tejero River, and the Tejero Creek. I hope that whenever there are strong rains like what we had yesterday afternoon, people living along the riverside would not allow their children to play, lest they be swallowed by a raging river.

In the meantime, we just have to live with the current realities of politicians whom we vote into power, but yet totally fails in their mandate, that is, to serve the Filipino people. These politicians are just good in campaigning before the elections, but when they are in power, they totally forget what the people need. Here in Cebu City, I hope you folks living along riversides would remember who not to vote for in the next local elections.

*  *  *

Well, we just read in the news that the Province of Cebu has just gotten a new legislative district dubbed the 7th District, which comprises the towns of Dumanjug, Ginatilan, Malabuyoc, Badian, Ronda, Alcantara, and Moalboal. The total population of the towns of the 7th district is 200,092 people. While the new congressman or woman of this newly formed district would be elected into office in the up and coming 2016 presidential elections. However, all this is dependent on whether Pres. Benigno Aquino III would sign this into law.

The 7th Legislative District was approved based on the clamor of Cebuano Legislators that Cebu Province was underrepresented. I remember talking about this issue with then Cebu Governor Pablo Garcia. But speaking of Cebu's being underrepresented in Congress, I still can't believe why Cebu City today has only two legislative districts, one in the North District represented by Rep. Raul del Mar and the South District represented by Bebot Abellanosa.

The population of Cebu City collated in the Year 2015 has already reached 950,000 residents. If you divided this number into two legislative districts, that's a total of 475,000 people residing in one district.

If you ask me, by now, Cebu City should have four legislative districts so we would have a congressman or woman for every 237,000 population. So we would like to know why Cebu City was not given importance when they were redistricting the Province of Cebu? Is it fair to the residents of Cebu City that they are underrepresented in the halls of Congress? If the committee of Sen. Ferdinand Marcos had allowed the redistricting of the Province of Cebu, I dare say that Cebu City should have 4 districts by now!

*  *  *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.