Canals, garbage, and Alang-Alang BDRRMO’s appeal

Brgy's disaster risk reduction chief to residents: Prevent flooding, throw your garbage properly

The Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Alang-Alang in Mandaue City use a vacuum truck of the city’s Department of General Services to clean Barangay Alang-Alang’s canals to ease flooding in flood-prone areas of the barangay. CDN Digital | Mary Rose Sagarino

MANDAUE CITY, CEBU, Philippines — Residents should have the discipline to stop throwing garbage into the streets and into the canals.

Gerrard Gleen Gobalani, operations head of Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (BDRRMO) in Barangay Alang-Alang made this appeal after the he and the BDRMMO cleaned the canals and drainage in the city on October 27, 2020.

“Sa amo’ng nakita, disciplina ra gyud ang kuwang kay ang Canal maungot gyud kay daghan plastics. Hangyo sa katawhan diri ug sa mga Mandauehanon take note na to throw the garbage properly kay mao gyud ni ato problema, ” said Gobalani.

(What we saw was that residents need discipline because plastics are the ones that clogged the canals. I appeal to the public here and to the Mandauehanons, to take note to throw their garbage properly because this is our problem.)

Gobalani said that it is important to keep waterways free from garbage so that the water could flow freely which could minimize flooding, especially during this rainy season which had poured rain in Metro Cebu in the past months.

With this, the personnel of BDRRMO cleaned Barangay Alang-Alang’s canal and drainage using the vacuum truck of the city’s General Services Office.

The use of the vacuum truck was approved by the Office of the Mayor after Gobalani sent a request to the mayor for the use of the truck in cleaning the barangay’s drainage and canals to ease the flooding in the barangay.

“Mao ni ato’ng measure nga madali, band aid solution kung baga kay wala man tay drainage plan. Mao gid ni ato’ng hope nga matabangan labi na ang interior portion, lisod gyud mga trabahante maglisod og gawas sa ilaha, ang mga balay masudlan, madamage ang ila’ng properties, ” Gobalani said.

(This is a measure to quickly solve the problem temporarily, band-aid solution, which is similar to our drainage plan. That is why our hope is that we can receive help in cleaning areas in the interior portion. It is difficult for workers, they can find it difficult to get out, water would enter houses, and damage their properties.)

The flood prone areas in barangay Alang-Alang are sitio Pulangbukid, Sudlon, Li-ong, Tres Rosas, Abbra, and Mabolo compound./dbs