The Mahiga Creek is filled with garbage after the heavy rains on Tuesday night. | Photo Courtesy of CCENRO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Department of Public Services (DPS) collected 140 tons of garbage in their continous clearing operations since the flashfloods on Tuesday night.
Lawyer John Jigo Dacua, head of the DPS, said they were still continuously hauling garbage from the city’s waterways as a preventive measure for expected heavy rains that might cause floods in the city.
Mayor Edgardo Labella has ordered the cleaning of the waterways after two people died and a minor went missing during the flood on October 13, 2020.
Read: Two dead, minor still missing due to flooding in Cebu City
The mayor told reporters in a phone conference on October 14, 2020, that the garbage was the main reason that General Maxilom Avenue or Mango Avenue was in waist-deep flood.
Even as the rains are pouring this evening, the DPS continues to collect garbage all over the city.
The DPS will provide a more detailed report on the garbage situation on Thursday, October 15, after they will finish the clearing operations.
Read: Labella: Households in riversides need to be relocated to solve flooding
Councilor Joel Garganera, the City Council’s chairperson for the committee on environment, said that the garbage in the waterways had been a major factor in the flooding.
“In order to solve the flooding in the city, we have to clean our waterways. There is no other way,” said the councilor.
Councilor Jerry Guardo, council’s chairperson for the committee on infrastructure, said that as much as the drainage and rivers would need to be widened, the garbage accumulated in the already compromised waterways would cause the unprecedent flooding in the uptown area.
The short term solution would be to regularly maintain the waterways and remove the garbage as often as the city can.
However, the long term solution would be to dredge, deepen, and widen the major rivers in the city. /dbs