P1.8 Billion to fix

Cebu City needs at least P1.8 billion in the next three years to fix it’s drainage system and hopefully prevent a repeat of Saturday night’s widespread flooding, a city official said yesterday.

City engineer Kenneth Carmelita Enriquez said a big part will be spent on desilting and widening of waterways and construction of mini dams to manage the overflow of water.

The estimate does not yet include the cost of evicting and resettling informal settlers or dismantling illegal structures by the rivers.

“I’m confident that the City Council will approve of the appropriation because this is for the general welfare,” Enriquez said in a briefing at the Mayor’s Office.

Mayor Michael Rama said the need to fund drainage improvement projects is one of the concerns he wanted to discuss with the city’s councilors in a meeting he will call when Councilor Margot Osmeña returns from the United States.

Osmeña chairs the budget committee of the City Council.

“We have to address the problem,” Rama said in a news conference that followed the engineering department’s briefing.

Enriquez, chief of the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW), said she is happy that President Aquino mentioned the clearing of waterways during his State of the Nation Address last Monday.

“It shows that clearing waterways is really a national issue. It is not just something that the Cebu City government is making up,” she said .

Enriquez listed the projects and programs which her office is proposing for the next three years.

Cebu city’s waterways are already silted and constricted, she said.

The drainage system is either fully silted or disconnected.

Citing 2006 data from the city’s drainage master plan, Enriquez said, the city’s seven major water ways – Bulacao River, Tagunol Waterway, Kinalumsan River, Guadalupe River, Estero Pari-an, Lahug River and the Mahiga Creek – cause flooding when there’s a heavy downpour.

A total of 10,830 structures are built on the waterways.

“If only there were no people living on the waterways, we won’t be worried when it rains,” Enriquez said.

Even the shape or path of waterways has ben changed by the presence of human settlements.

“Rain is supposed to be a natural flushing of silt. However, our waterways are already filled with garbage, preventing the normal flow of water,” Enriquez said.

In one instance, sanitation workers collected 10 sacks of trash from a manhole they opened.

Guillermo Viola, in-charge of the drainage management of the DEPW, said the situation may have worsened from the time the survey data was collected in 2006.

Officials earlier said “political will” is needed to remove villages and settlers from the 3-meter-easement of creeks.

Mayor Rama said the city government may file charges against those who don’t heed City Hall’s request for them to move out.

Violators will be identified after the survey and assessment to be made by the recently created Reduce Danger Zones (ReDZ) project led by Jose Daluz III.

Mahiga Creek

The Cebu City government and the Cebu Ports Authority (CPA) are again at odds over who among them is responsible for dredging the Mahiga Creek.

“It’s the responsibility of the CPA to dredge the shoreline because it is in their jurisdiction,” said DEPW’s Enriquez.

The mouth of the Mahiga Creek, which is on City Hall’s list of danger zones, opens in CPA’s jurisdiction, Enriquez said.

City Hall’s DEPW also doesn’t have the budget to extend their dredging operations in the port area.

Sought for a comment, CPA deputy general manager Yusop J. Uckung said the CPA doesn’t have funds either for this.

“We are willing to desilt part of the Mahiga not really to regulate flooding but to make the CIP (Cebu International Port) more accessible. Although it is incidental that we can help with the flooding,” Uckung told CDN.

He said the CPA’s mandate only covers navigable waters.