Last Saturday, four persons, including an elderly couple, were rescued after chest-level waters from an overflowing river trapped them inside their house in barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City.
The four can thank their stars they did not go the way of an unfortunate many, mostly kids, who perished in or near Cebu’s waterways when flash floods struck especially during the rainy season.
Cort Cabucos, 7, drowned in the Mahiga creek while playing in the rain in May 2011. Gerry Sumampong, 6, drowned in the Mabolo river where he scavenged during a downpour in November 2010. This space is not sufficient to mention everyone who died in similar circumstances in Cebu province.
The time is long past for clearing our rivers and other waterways. Yet human settlements continue to mushroom on riverbanks as if residents know no better than the first Egyptians who lived by the Nile, prone to being swept away when the water swelled.
In Cebu City, the government needs to send the signal, loud and clear, that areas near the water are no man’s lands. Much less are these hazardous places leverage for settlers to demand free relocation sites from the State.
Last Sept. 5, Regional Trial Court Judge Soliver Peras of Branch 10, siding with the Cebu City government, said structures along the Mahiga Creek can be demolished.
At least 300 families living along the creek had asked the court for help, stating that they should not be moved without relocation. The court, nevertheless, discovered that these families are not even qualified for relocation under the law since they are not poor.
Even as authorities in the nation’s capital prepare to clear the banks of the Pasig River, leaders in the Queen City of the South need to proceed with dispatch in clearing the Mahiga banks once they hurdle all legal impediments to the operation.
Traders, too, especially those who own establishments like Colon Streeet’s Gaisano Main, Dimsum Fastfood and 138 Mall, which stand on or along water bodies, should yield to the law on easement zones.
Demolitions of man-made structures along rivers like Guadalupe, Bulacao and others up and down the city and province ought to be conducted at the soonest possible time.
Cebuanos need to hasten the day when our waterway stories are no longer about demolitions and drownings but about rehabilitation.
We cannot hope to become a metropolitan wonder of the world when our wealth of waterfronts epitomize decay in contrast to those found in Marseilles in France, Boston in the US and Sydney in Australia; when our waterways only give new shades of meaning to the phrase “water torture.”