Since it would take more time and money to deal with illegal settlers, it was bold of Cebu City Hall to first target commercial establishments that overstep the three-meter easement zone in the Mahiga Creek.
Now does City Hall have the political will to evict them if they don’t heed notices of warning?
For years, the scapegoat of urban flooding has been the countless families living rent-free by creeks and choked rivers. Elections come and go, but they remain in the banks of waterways or hanging over them.
The Cebu City River Management Council identified at least 50 businesses encroaching on the public easement. Their top priority is ten establishments of prestious, successful commercial entities.
The advantage is that each one can be challenged to convert their pronouncements of “corporate social responsibility” to reality by complying with the law.
We’d like to hear the response of corporate leaders, not their lawyers spouting rights of private ownership.
Appealing to each company is necessary because we’ve run out of time. If no headway is made in clearing up the city’s waterways, we are doomed to more urban flooding.
The assessment by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) points out that the old drainage master plan crafted for Cebu City in 2006 no longer meets today’s situation. The data needs updating.
But the causes for clogged drainage remain: indiscriminate and improper disposal of garbage and wastes. Silted waterways and clogged drainage lines can’t absorb the rush of sewer water and rain run off during a downpour.
Based on the initial assessment of JICA consultants, who are still putting together a study to guide sustainable growth for Cebu up to 2050, building drainage systems based on the old master plan may solve flooding in one city but end up worsening the problem in another.
A wholistic view requires cities and towns with shared watersheds to sit down and agree on a common plan.
When floodwaters rage, the water doesn’t ask permission from one mayor or another for access to a territory.
The interim report of JICA for the two-year-old Metro Cebu Development and Coordinating Board (MCDB) reveals that key cities of Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue and Talisay each have a drainage master plan.
But are they synchronized?
This is where the real work comes in, for both engineers and local leaders in the private sector and government.
They have to set aside myopic views of hometown development and wrestle with urban growth problems as a metropolis, assisting smaller towns and cities in crafting their own drainage plans to guide their efforts instead of settling for a slapdash, panic response to flooding during the unpredictable monsoon season.
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