A good step against flooding

The Cebu city government’s intent to up the ante on regulating the use of plastics this September is a vital, though not the only step to combating urban flooding brought about by heavy rains.

City Ordinance 2343 or the “No Plastic Saturday Ordinance of Cebu City” is expected to have more teeth with plans to extend its coverage to Wednesdays in its second year.

The plan to enforce the ordinance is welcome news in the aftermath of last Saturday’s floods that left thousands stranded in the city for hours.

This ordinance places Cebu City in step with at least 90 cities and towns across the archipelago that enacted measures to ban or limit the use of plastic bags, which end up clogging waterways and exacerbating floods.

This ordinance is worth emulating in other local government units in Metro Cebu. The public should stand behind the government in making the law come alive.

Our hopes are high that the implementation of this measure, already proven feasible in malls that have “no plastic bag days” will not go the way of Cebu City’s waste segregation program.

In his first term, the Cebu city government saw Mayor Michael Rama’s enforcement of the “no waste segregation, no collection” policy fizzle out, no small thanks to the delays in the closure of that monument to unsegregated trash called the Inayawan landfill where all the city’s garbage went.

The plastic regulation ordinance needs to be buttressed by a renewed effort to make residents collect and segregate their garbage. Plastic bags are not the only forms of filth that end up constricting our waterways and already-ineffective drainage system.

In the meantime, our leaders must not lag in addressing flooding through proper infrastructure.

We find it baffling that drainage works such as the one being carried out in Junquera and Colon streets should be scheduled smack in the middle of the wet season when the weather often limits what can be accomplished.

We are disheartened to note that the dredging of creeks and rivers has been at best sporadic and that nothing has been done to increase the number of trees to absorb runoff rainwater in the city’s plains.

Thousands were inconvenienced in Saturday’s floods. Let us not wait for a rampaging deluge to claim lives before we take an integrated approach to flood mitigation.