A perfect time
PAG-ASA, a name that, to me, does not look appropriate for the weather bureau, forecasts the weather condition that we are now starting to experience. In the last few days, temperatures soared. Except for the clouds that appeared in the morning of Friday, we have had clear skies lately and the sun seemed simmering.
Summer, to the woe of small garden owners like me, is here. If weather specialists are not wrong in interpreting their models, we shall have a long warm spell. With it, some of our creeks will dry up and there will be decreasing volumes of water running on our major rivers. In fact, the water level of the open well that I dug in my garden area is bottoming up that my neighbors are complaining there is little water.
This condition must not have escaped the attention of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama. He must have configured what to do in this kind of weather. Surely, we do not have to tell him that it presents a good opportunity for him to pursue his stalled program of clearing the city's waterways.
To recall, the mayor, not very long ago, embarked on a much-awaited project designed to improve the seaward flow of rainwater. In explaining the necessity of the project, he claimed that climate change caused the rains in heavier volumes per minute per square inch than what we normally received. But, the rainwater could not be easily drained to the seas because our waterways are heavily silted and illegal structures caused the narrowing of our rivers.
First in his line of fire was the proximate cause of the flooding. These were the houses built on the riverbanks. They were erected right on top of the legal easements with many of them having their posts imbedded into the riverbed itself. In that characterization, they were nuisance per se. Lawyers point out that as nuisance per se, those structures could be abated, without need of a court order.
That was what the mayor did. He initially succeeded in tearing down illegally built homes because the informal settlers, aware of the legally flawed nature of their buildings, did not offer any resistance more than their token requests for financial assistance. But, the project was rudely stopped when informal settlers, openly backed up by forces unfriendly to the political leanings of the mayor, went to court.
Even when the court upheld the mayor's act, his momentum was affected. Perhaps desirous not to face more baseless suits, he slowed his efforts. His hesitation emboldened some squatters to put back their demolished homes. Anyway, there were also more storms that skewed the implementation of the clearing project.
Now is the perfect time, mayor. Weather is cooperating. Let us mobilize all heavy equipment units and complement manpower to dredge the silt out of riverbeds. It is ideal to start with the beds that abut banks where there are no structures. After pulling out the alluvial deposits there, we can convert the cleared space as staging points to receive whatever silt bulldozers can move from higher elevations.
There is one other point, mayor. In our midst are corporate construction giants. I am sure their officers, mostly Cebuanos, have profound social responsibilities. If you ask them to volunteer to remove the silt from a segment of any river, for a day or two, they will be glad to contribute to achieving the objective. They will take the public adulation enough reward for their civic mindedness.
While your crew shall be so feverishly working on taking out the silt, you should, send abatement notices to illegal builders, whether they are the power wielders or the modest homeowners, specifying times within which to demolish their structures. The notice should be written in clear language that you are about to do what is good for the general body politic. It is important to let affected ones understand that if there is some imagined prejudice visiting them, it is the price they have to pay for the ultimate good of the vast majority of our people.
The weather is definitely getting hotter. It is forecast to continue for the window of time you need to complete the project. Push it, mayor. Whatever political noise the opposition will attempt to generate will be buried by our thunderous approval.
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