EDITORIAL - A choice between garbage and floods

Under the proposed 2018 Cebu City budget of P6.3 billion, garbage collection is slated to get a whopping P381.9 million. By comparison, flood control is to get a paltry P3.5 million. This did not escape the notice of opposition councilor Joel Garganera, who asked where the priorities of the city administration lie. Without meaning to take any sides, it might also be validly asked of Garganera where his priorities lie as well.

Between floods and garbage, any sensible person will likely prioritize garbage. Floods only happen when it rains. And if the rains are not heavy enough, there is likely to be no flood. But garbage accumulates daily. Cebu City generates something like 700 tons of garbage in a day. If something skews up collection of garbage even for just a day, Cebu City residents will be swimming in a flood of solid waste.

This is not to belittle the effects of floods. Floods can kill. Floods can destroy property. Floods can disrupt human activity. But uncollected garbage can have effects that are just as deleterious, perhaps even more. Uncollected garbage can spawn more diseases than floods. And the smell can be terrible and uncomfortable. Besides, floods will eventually go away. But garbage, if uncollected, will not only stay, it will grow daily.

This is not to say, of course, that the huge amount proposed to be set aside for garbage collection should not be scrutinized properly, especially in light of questions pertaining to the choices made by the city administration in contracting out garbage collection services. But who got the lucrative contract and why they got it are entirely different things. They cannot be lumped with the issue of priorities, especially if the choices are clearly reduced to garbage and floods.

Besides, no matter how much money might be allocated for floods and the mitigation of its effects, these will never be enough, especially in a city like Cebu that is not exactly swimming in a flood of money. Cebu City can only allocate so much. And even if it can double, triple or even quadruple its budget for floods, it will still never be enough in these climate-rapped times.

There is nothing any place on earth can do about floods anymore. Unless we have all been oblivious to the news, even places with the best flood control systems have recently been inundated. Places that never saw water rise above the ankle are now regularly seeing at least waist-deep waters. Not that we do not at least try. But given our meager resources and lack of any real means to fight an angry Mother Nature, it is best to put what scant resources we have where it makes a difference.