The biggest drainage “headache” is caused by floodwaters inundating Cabancalan and Casuntingan as earlier printed in this column. Floodwaters come from upper Cebu City, like, the USC and UV campuses, Santo Niño Village, etc. cascading into that natural lake in the lowland.
These rainfalls are not contained in that big lagoon. They spill over rushing to Casuntingan and Cabancalan including the streets/roads, like, virtual rivers as drainage canals. The lake doesn’t ebb for months, and its spillage could take weeks before drying up. Perhaps excess water also spills over to Banilad along Fortuna Street, down to the constricted upper Mahiga Creek.
Decades back, these floodwaters drain into a large “bito” – natural “sinkhole” – located in Cabancalan, into a cavern down to an underground channel that ended at its outlet in Jagobiao. Its outlet had a circumference of a “buri” tree, or big oil barrel, and that volume of rushing water. People then called it the “Jagobiao spring.”
To reprise the previous column, some old folk, as then related by former Mandaue police officer, the late Eugenio Cosido, whose son “Red-red” Cosido is the Cabancalan barangay captain, and living in the vicinity of the “bito,” tested that the Jagobiao outfall came from the “bito” by floating down old clothes, and later by dye, that found outlet at said “Jagobiao spring”… This “Jagobiao spring” dried up when the sinkhole’s mouth down some feet under, was closed by a dynamite explosion; thus, the “bito” could no longer “siphon” any floodwaters. Another version runs that the mouth has been covered with concrete.
Former Cebu City and Mandaue City Engineer Antonio B. Sanchez, revealed that there was a time when both LGUs were interested in solving the drainage problem. The Water Resources Council and the MCWD also allegedly showed interest, presumably not just to regulate the “aquefier” as some claimed, but for future use as reserved water reservoir or catchment. But nothing fructified thereafter, while the sinkhole stays closed until now and flooding persists.
Lately, more stakeholders are coming out, such as, NGOs and officials of certain subdivisions. For instance, there’s that NGO headed by Engineer Fe Walag, whose position is not for revival of the “sinkhole.” She argued that reviving it poses sanitation problem; but, this writer questioned how could it be, when the “bito” merely drains in the bulk floods. Unsanitary elements come only when rain water stagnates in the lake. Whatever breach to sanitation is man-made, say, in the disposal of garbage and fecal waste contaminating the lake’s stagnant water.
Another argument of Engr. Walag was that the big underground cavern has already been silted by thick limestone, but then, one countered how could there be thick limestone when the cavern’s walls are of hard rock? At any rate, why don’t we revive the “bito” by boring into the cement blockage and, find out if the “bito” could not “guzzle” the floodwaters as before. One jestingly asked: “Why don’t we give a chance for God who created the ‘bito’ to do His thing?”
Engr. Oscar Rodriguez of the Council of Elders, recently had a feedback of a conference on drainage by NGO stakeholders, with a plan to solve the problem. It seeks to drain the floodwaters by giant culverts to the Butuanon River across Cabancalan and Casuntingan, about 3 kilometers far. It entails feasibility study on right-of-way, the natural gradient, catch basins in between, etc. costing some P1.8 M to P2 M, and the project cost could be more than P5 M. The time to finish the project might take 5 years? Meantime, between now and then, any short-term remedy?
Other stakeholders who may be against the “sinkhole” revival are envisioning a water park, or something commercial – with various “come-ons” put up, like, resto-bars, eateries, tourist fairs, fishing gimmicks. C’mon, let Nature take its course, and for the Mandaue LGU where the sinkhole is – regardless of the ownership of the lot – to take precedent jurisdiction and authority. And, to repeat, let God who made the sinkhole do His thing!
Muse it over. God could be in wrathful quandary why His own making, the natural sinkhole and underground drainage system for excess water, has to be closed by man, His puny creatures!