We read recently of a most heart-warming event in Mandaue City. As reported, about three hundred families have agreed to do their share of protecting the environment. Given that they come from a small identifiable community, their contribution can, to the objective mind, be discernible. The members of this community truly believe that they really are partners in addressing climate change, however seemingly insignificant their efforts appear to be. Perhaps, we may claim that their participation in the distortion of ecological balance is negligible but a complete approach to solving our modern climactic woes places them in the vortex of all endeavors.
Many years ago, these families, coming from various nearby islands, were attracted to our province by the glitter of city life. Upon setting foot here, they immediately felt the dire need for a home which could even be more modest than the ones they left behind. Because most, if not all of them, were not heirs of landed estate hereabout, they had no patch of dry land to claim their own. Just the same, they had to find a place to build a semblance of a house. Their families had to have some kind of a roof over their heads.
The only vacant spaces where they could erect temporary posts for their eventual homes to stand on were those on the banks of Mahiga Creek. To shield them from the harshness of a cold weather or to protect them from the heat of a summer sun, they nailed a miscellany of cardboard, cast away plywood and discarded galvanized sheets. However those structures looked like, they were homes to those settlers.
With the passage of time, their number multiplied and the slots, previously uninhabited, got occupied. Not only have they squatted on the banks of the river, some of them began, by force of circumstance, to erect their houses on top of the river itself. Among them on whom fortune smiled, they had the opportunity to replace their stilted homes with strong and more lasting materials. And the incursion into the waterway was made permanent.
Of recent years, mother earth started to complain. Floods, in unimagined frequencies and volumes, have started to devastate our communities. In our city, these are compounded by man’s impeding the flow of water. The Mahiga Creek, now polluted, with its banks being narrowed by unauthorized settlers, can no longer absorb the volume of rain water. It has become a constant source of flood water.
Fortunately, these three hundred settlers, or so, have realized that their houses have intruded into a legal easement and worse have been identified as the most proximate cause of flash floods. Yes, it is most heart-warming to consider that these families sacrifice a lot in choosing to dismantle their homes rather than be blamed as the source of the woes of other people.
Unfortunately, the sacrifice of these settlers will be in vain. While the clearing of the Mandaue side of Mahiga Creek may soon be accomplished, that Cebu City side will remain fully occupied. There is no doubt that those illegal structures on the side of Cebu City will remain as impediments to the flow of rain water.
Why does this discrepancy take place? For one, it is the charisma of Mandaue City Mayor Jonas C. Cortes. He has projected sincerity in approaching this problem for which reason his constituencies believe in him. For another, the fact Mayor Cortes faces no serious challenge this coming election is most helpful.
Here in Cebu City, the political opponents of the mayor have egged the settlers to continue occupying the banks of Mahiga Creek. It has been even reported that these politicians, on some legal mumbo-jumbo, were the ones who filed the case to stop the city from clearing the Mahiga Creek of illegal settlers. The hands of the city administration are tied. They cannot solve the recurrence of floods. So, each time the horizon darkens with heavy clouds, we fear that floods are roaring nearby.
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