EDITORIAL - City means business

It is good that the city has finally taken serious cognizance of its perennial flooding problem. If the approval of a P174 million calamity fund, of which P90 million has been earmarked for flood mitigation and related expenditures, is any indication, then the city must really mean business in dealing with the problem.

Aside from the funding, there also appears to be a serious effort to clear many of the city's clogged and congested waterways, starting with the Mahiga Creek, which is one of the most problematic. Clearing the creek of structures and other obstructions is due to start anytime now.

After the city clears Mahiga Creek, it should lose no time in clearing all other waterways, regardless of whether they have posed as problems before or not. The time to do honest-to-goodness clearing is now, in the dead of summer, when the weather should prove more cooperative. The work to be done cannot be put off until the rains come again in earnest.

And while the city is at it, it should also put the allocated funding for flood mitigation measures to more constructive use, quite literally. The city can go on a sort of construction binge to build and rehabilitate drainage systems and other ways to deal with the threat of flashfloods.

Part of the money should also go to the enforcement of existing laws and ordinances that prohibit the indiscriminate dumping of garbage, one of the great contributors to flooding. Now is also the time to do this because the city is aggressively enforcing garbage segregation.

Dealing with the twin problems of flooding and garbage disposal is like hitting two birds with one stone, and it will be to the city's credit, and the future benefit of its citizens, is these problems are dealt with promptly, aggressively and efficiently. Needless to say, failure to do so can only be everybody's loss and pain.

But the city cannot do these things alone. They need the wholehearted cooperation and support of the citizenry. Everybody has a civic duty to do in this regard. Even the business community is most welcome to chip in and do what it can. Flooding and its disastrous effects, after all, should be everybody's concern.