P2.5B earmarked for flood solutions

CEBU, Philippines — Over P2.5 billion will be used from the coffers of Cebu City government and the Department of Public Works and Highways-Cebu City District Engineering Office to address the worsening problem on floods.

Yesterday, Mayor Edgardo Labella called for a coordination meeting among officials from the city’s Department of Engineering and Public Works, DPWH-CCDEO, and key officials of the city to discuss the short- and long-term solutions to the flooding problem because of what happened in different parts of the city following the heavy downpour over the weekend.

“The flood yesterday (Sunday) was like an eye-opener for us,” he told reporters.

Because of the heavy downpour last Sunday, there were several areas in the city that were heavily flooded such as N. Bacalso Avenue, Sanciangko Street, Colon Street, and Manalili Street, among others.

During the meeting, Labella said he was told that the city has P1.5 billion worth of flood-control projects unutilized from the continuing appropriations in the Annual Budget in 2015.

Further, DPWH District Engineer Florida Nuñez reported that the office has ongoing flood control projects worth P1.2 billion for Cebu City and Mandaue City this year.

The bulk of the P1.2 billion will be implemented in Cebu City, she said.

This year, the ongoing projects of the DPWH for Cebu City are the P1.2 billion for the Bulacao River improvement, P575 million for the Lahug River improvement, P532 million for the Tejero Creek improvement, P700 million for the Guadalupe River improvement, among others.

However, Nuñez said the office is implementing these projects on a staggered basis.

With this, Labella immediately created an inter-agency task force that will be composed of engineers from the city and DPWH-CCDEO to look into projects that will be funded by the national government and projects that will be funded by the city government.

“The inter-agency task force will make an evaluation study on these flood-control programs of both the city and the DPWH so that there will be no overlapping and so that there will be coherence in implementing these projects,” he said.

Aside from these flood-control projects, Nuñez said her office will assist the city in the regular cleanup of the existing drainage for the immediate action to address the flooding.

She said her office has a hundred personnel who will roam around the city to randomly declog the drainage systems.

“The good news, yesterday (Sunday’s flood) napakabilis nag-subside. That’s the good news. Ang malungkot dun kung three days na namamaho ang tubig, nandyan pa rin. Ibig sabihin, functional pa din yung ating mga drainage system sa Cebu City,” she added.

Labella also invited the DPWH-CCDEO to help in the massive cleanup of the Subangdaku River or Mahiga Creek on September 14.

While the city is still doing immediate measures, the mayor said officials of the city and the national agencies are not sleeping on the job to address the problem.

“We inherited these problems from the previous administrations. We are doing our best,” he added. (FREEMAN)