EDITORIAL - Plastic bags the lazy man's excuse for flooding

A few months ago, Mandaue City imposed a total ban on plastic bags thinking that since plastic bags help clog up waterways, getting rid of them will put an end to its flooding problems. It did not. It continues to flood in Mandaue City to this day. But the move has found believers in neighboring Cebu City, which has struggled much longer with its own flood issues.

Opposition councilor Jun Alcover has filed a copycat measure and found surprising support from Mayor Tomas Osmeña. Funny how two of the most developed cities in Cebu can actually think floods are something than can be legislated away? Well, it hasn't worked in Mandaue City. Let's see if it works in Cebu City. A word of caution, though. Do not expect too much from politicians trying to play environmentalists.

Flooding is the result of a complex mix of problems, only a small portion of which is caused by clogging of waterways, and an even tinier portion of which is caused by clogging particularly by plastic bags. Try dredging any of the city's clogged esteros right now and chances are you find not only plastic bags but the entire inventory of human invention.

So why focus on the plastic bag? Because the plastic is the most convenient excuse for the entire gamut of government neglect and inefficiency that is the real cause of flooding in cities. There is no real working and efficient drainage system in either Cebu City and Mandaue City because the politicians who run them do not have the political will to build them.

Look at Ormoc City in Leyte. There you can see what a real honest-to-goodness drainage and flood control system looks like. But it had to take a killer flood that took more than 3,000 lives to underscore the need to build one. And it had plenty of help from Japan, which built the system from start to finish. We do not have such kind of help. But maybe because we find it too much of a bother to ask.

It is far easier to just find a scapegoat that doesn't talk back, like a plastic bag. Besides, if the complete ban on plastic bags doesn't work, as it most certainly won't, its proponents can always kick the flood problem like a can down the road. With elections happening every three short years, it is a problem that can easily be inherited by the succeeding politicians.

Hopefully, one will come along with enough sense to realize plastic bags do not clog waterways on their own. People make them do that. And see too the other things like heavier rains from global warming and climate change, denudation of mountains, unmitigated urban development, no efficient drainage, and improper management thereof, tidal factors that affect outflows to the sea. But that involves real work. Better to just pay lip service to the environment: Ban plastic bags!