Last Thursday I had the opportunity to interview for ‘My Politics’ three persons who are actively trying to make Cebu a better place to live — Marc Canton, Architect Michael Yumi Espina and Eng. Fortunato “Jun” Sanchez.
We took up several concerns that affect Cebuanos, discussing first the rationale of the Cebu Green Loop plan that will experiment with road sharing today in four major roads of Cebu City. Half of the road lanes will be allocated for people to walk, bike or host other activities for pedestrians. The other half will be for vehicles.
Statistics showed that 95 percent of the roads are used by vehicles while the rest of the population only use a small portion of the roads.
One goal of the Green Loop plan is to give a bigger portion of the road for the use of people with no cars so they can walk or bike to their destinations, or just enjoy walking for exercise.
I hope that eventually, the public will support this endeavor to give the road back to the people.
Some argue that the road sharing scheme won’t work in the Philippines with its hot, tropical weather. On this, Canton said we can plant more trees to provide more shade to protect us from the sun. Canton cited Singapore which has the same tropical climate as the Philippines but has more roads for people to walk, bike and do other things.
Another topic of discussion was the vision of a third Mactan bridge, which Architect Yumi Espina’s students designed, to connect Cordova and somewhere south of Cebu City. Why south of the city? It’s a logical choice, said Espina, to allow people from the south, including those from Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental, to come to Cebu without having to go to central Cebu City to reach the international airport.
And the city would be spared the additional number of vehicles from southern Cebu which are headed to the airport.
Also, Architect Espina was excited about the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) which got President Aquino’s green light. The forthcoming mode of mass transit would expand choices of Cebuanos who can also be introduced to electric vehicles and electric bicycles.
But I can’t understand why the proposed BRT route will traverse Osmeña Boulevard where there are not many commuters.
I prefer the proposed route of the Movement for a Livable Cebu which will start from Pardo in Cebu City, passing Natalio Bacalso Avenue then straight to the new Imus Road then on to Mandaue City.
This would serve more people and ease traffic there. This proposal is more logical and not political.
The flooding in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue was next in the discussion. Engineer Sanchez compared the rains in Ormoc City, where flooding killed over 5,000 people after 400 millimeters of rainfall.
He compared it with Metro Manila’s ordeal when Ondoy struck with a rainfall of about 200 millimeters. After the downpour in Metro Cebu last Sept. 18, we experienced flooding after only about 60 millimeters of rain.
So why was flooding in the cities so severe? Sanchez explained that rain water from the mountains have nowhere to go, so roads near SM Cebu in the North Reclamation Area get flooded every time there’s heavy rain. What’s ironic is that SM sits near the Mahiga Creek beside the sea, but still gets flooded.
What are the solutions to the flooding in the city?
Sanchez listed a number of options like clearing creeks and rivers of obstructions, dredging from the mouth of the river going upstream, installing cisterns in households, clearing three-meter easements on both sides of waterways.
Finally, the most important suggestion to end our miseries, Sanchez said, is to build a dam in the mountains of Cebu City.
The dam would hold the excess water and keep it from rushing to the city.
Aside from containing the water, the dam’s reservoir of water can also be used to replenish the aquifers and form part of our water supply.
Why not install bigger culverts to accommodate a bigger volume of flood water?
According to Sanchez, this remedy is not enough to prevent flooding. He cited the experience in A.S. Fortuna Street, fronting the Rolling Hills in Mandaue City. The area still gets flooded during heavy rains, even after the Mandaue city government installed bigger culverts.
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