Last Friday’s Mega Cebu forum which discussed, among others, a congressman’s proposal to build a stormwater tunnel to catch floodwaters during the rainy season, reminds Cebu officials of the enormousness of the task at hand to achieve an ecologically balanced, yet modern Metro Cebu.
The “smart underpass” is a timely proposal that may solve, at least in the next decade or so, the problem of flooding and traffic congestion in Natalio Bacalso Avenue and southern Cebu City.
Rep. Rodrigo Abellanosa of Cebu City’s south district is lobbying for funding for his project, patterned after Asia’s biggest stormwater tunnel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to be included in the 2015 national budget, whose proceedings start in July.
As Abellanosa spelled out in last Friday’s forum, the 700-meter underpass will include underground cisterns in Natalio Bacalso Avenue along the intersection of F. Llamas Street.
It’s a smaller version of Malayasia’s almost 10-kilometer tunnel, but it would be the Philippines’ first.
We need out-of-the-box ideas like this to solve a perennial problem like urban flooding.
It actually meets a second problem of traffic congestion as the design calls for widening the highway from four lanes to six.
Granting the approval of a budget, the potential obstacle is road right of way negotiations with land owners which, based on previous experience, could drag on for ten years or more.
Can we wait for that?
If an uncoventional solution is proposed like the stormwater tunnel, a perrenial problem of RROW headaches, needs another out-of-the-box fix.
Calling for political will among elected officials is a cliche when what you need is effective action.
Instead of relying on the Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to negotiate with land owners – a song-and-dance routine that stretches for years with undocumented expenses –– why not ask the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other business groups who work for the love of Cebu to handle the persuasion?
Businessmen and real estate dealers speak their own language better. They can find the right number for a fair selling price and compensation much faster.
Convoluted DPWH guidelines prescribe negotiated sale as the mode of choice, while court expropriation is the last. Mega Cebu champions appealed to congressmen to lobby with the DPWH to simplify the guidelines.
We agree. Leaving it to DPWH to negotiate a sale is an invitiation to prolonged corruption and delay.
Fair compensation is best determined by parties of good will freely agreeing on a price, or by the court, which will still consult them anyway for a mutual decision. And if parties don’t agree, at least the government can enter the property and proceed to build after a mandated 10 percent downpayment.