EDITORIAL - The long-term solution that holds water

Rainy season isn’t even here yet and we are already facing flashflood problems whenever there is a heavy downpour.

According to the Department of Engineering and Public Works, declogging is a short-term solution to the city’s flooding problem.

We wholeheartedly agree. Along those lines, the long-term solution should be to prevent clogging at all.

And the source of the clog? Well, it can be traced to humans and their bad habit of reckless littering and irresponsible disposal of trash.

Flooding has many causes like, the season, the terrain, illegal structures, among others. However, in Cebu City and other parts of Metro Cebu, the biggest cause of flooding has always been our neglect when it comes to getting rid of our trash.

It’s a simple cause-and-effect scenario; trash that isn’t disposed of properly, mostly plastics, blocks storm drains, drainages, and other outlets where excess water is supposed to go. When these outlets are blocked, water builds up where it isn’t supposed to.

Even the tiniest candy wrapper, the smallest plastic bag has the potential to become the cause of that flashflood when they build up into a mass of non-permeable material.

Plastic is a marvel in itself, it’s soft, it’s flexible, and it can hold water. However, the bad news is that because it can hold water, it can also hold back water from where it should be going. And when that happens, water just has nowhere to go.

This idea seems to be a fact that most people are too dense to understand --it’s like water that can’t permeate through plastic-- or maybe they just don’t care at all.

The sooner we learn to get rid of our trash properly and not just litter anywhere, the sooner we will solve our flooding problem.

The sad thing is we never seem to learn our lesson.

There is a saying that life will keep on giving us the same test until we pass it. We can say to some extent that this is happening now, with our seemingly endless cycle of littering, heavy rains, heavy flooding, and complaining.