Preventing a disaster waiting to happen

The emergency command center, of sorts, of Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City, is located along C. Mina Street. The fire trucks and other vehicles belonging to the barangay access their command complex which is located towards the rear portion of the barangay hall using this C. Mina Street. The building which they call as barangay sports complex is also located beside the command center near the street’s dead end. This C. Mina Street is quite narrow such that two fire trucks coming from opposite directions cannot drive fast during an emergency. Consider the situation when one such vehicle is going out of the command center to answer an emergency and the other fire truck is coming back to base. The vehicles have to literally crawl in order to avoid the high risk of head-on collision.

Well, to be sure, the road is not that narrow. Like I have written in this column few times in the past, C. Mina Street, though supposedly a two-lane road, can allow two cars coming from opposite directions provided that they are driven rather slowly. But, I dare say that C. Mina is made narrower by several things.

1.) There are food stalls that are erected on the street. Each of these many stalls covers a small area of about one meter by two meters on the average. These structures are made of light materials so that when government announces to undertake cleanup operations, they can be easily removed even if after a short while they can be put up again. Actually this is more of a modus vivendi rather than a cat-and-mouse game.

The owners of these “carenderias” cannot be driven away from portions of the C. Mina Street that they are settling on. On one hand, they are aware that their occupancy is illegal and anytime they can be asked to demolish their structures but on the other hand they seem to hold virtually the necks of our political leaders. Our officials know the legal truism that properties of public domain, like roads, are beyond the commerce of man. But our leaders also admit that the votes of these informal settlers make our elected officials win during elections. So, both parties quid pro quo.

2.) I have written some time ago that some settlers of C. Mina Street have improved their makeshift structures as to become temporary homes. Every time the government wants to clear the road of impediments, the homeowners blame the government for its failure to help the homeless. This reversion of roles works. They always manage to ask authorities to delay their ejectment on the reason that they will still be the ones to look for places to transfer to.

3.) Every time one looks for a free parking in the vicinity of the Mabolo barangay hall, Mabolo Royal Hotel, the Catholic church and the elementary school, he can find one in C. Mina Street. This happens almost every day. So we can find vehicles parked on the narrow C. Mina Street making it even narrower.

I rarely go to our small business situated in front of the Mabolo Emergency Command Center. More often than not, traffic in that area is snarled by the narrowness of C. Mina Street. That condition daunts me. Imagine if, God forbid, there is a heavy conflagration which the Mabolo fire trucks have to respond, with the food stalls near the Mabolo Barangay Hall full of customers and there are vehicles parked along C. Mina Street, is not disaster waiting to happen? To prevent such calamity, let City Hall relocate the food stalls and clear the street of other impediments.