Re-groove 13 times

Last Tuesday evening, I played antique vinyls on my four-decades-old Pioneer components. The Frank Sinatra LP record entitled “Cycles” has a short but a very beautiful song, Pretty Colors, which, in my recollection did not get high in the music charts. But in the cut containing the song “Cycles” itself, it had a deep scratch, so deep that the song would keep going back. The disc jockeys of my time would call the situation as “re-groove” because the song would go back to the groove where the scratch started.

 While trying to remedy the “re-grooving” using the techniques we learned while I worked as a DJ in the ‘70s, I received on my cellphone a video of the flash flood that hit the former Mango Avenue. The video terrified me because I could not remember Gen. Maxilom Avenue being hit by horrendous floodwaters in the past. That was the very first time that waters several feet deep flowed through Mango Avenue. It was not superstitious for me to attach that horrifying scene on the 13th day of the month that last Tuesday was. Yes, it was October 13.

Yesterday, Justin (I do not know the family name) a supposed reader-friend of mine, suggested that I write again about the possible causes of flashfloods in the city and suggest to authorities solutions as if I had a master’s degree in urban planning. Write again? Justin humored me. I might have filed with the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Cebu City when I was a councilor a proposed ordinance on tree planting as idea to solve the balding of our mountains which failed to get the support of the council purportedly on account of my being in the minority but that was an idea years ahead our acceptance of the term “climate change”.

I even replied to Justin that I wrote, in this column, several articles suggesting to the city leadership a number of things that, I thought, might help our environment. For example, I opined here that the waterway behind T. Padilla Market needed to be dredged to its original depth because the alluvial deposit had made the creek very shallow already. Dredging and desilting should be done on all other city waterways. But it appeared that such projects were not in the agenda of the government.

There was also a time that I dwelt on the floods that cascaded somewhere in the vicinity of the Sacred Heart Center along D. Jakosalem Street. I then pointed out that the probable cause of the unusual heavy volume of floodwaters that occurred days before I wrote the article was caused by the diversion of the natural waterways in front of the St. Theresa’s College and the use of much smaller culverts. Because it seemed to me that such disadvantageous projects were undertaken by the private company with the apparent consent of high government officials, I suggested to officials to review the situation. I surmise that the Mango Avenue flood last Tuesday was an effect.

The series of write-ups, probably numbering 13, including a need to remove all man-made structures on our rivers and riverbanks that impede the flow of water did not generate any government action. Recalling here what I have written 13 times in the past is like the “re-grooving” of the song “Cycles”. Morag plakang buak. But, who knows, 13 being my lucky number, the terrible experience we went through last Tuesday may finally bring drastic perspective change in our leaders.