Wilhelmina S. Orozco
Why are our problems as a people highly repetitive? Are we advancing or regressing? The floods are perennially with us. Yet how many civil engineers do we graduate every year? Why aren’t all the civil engineers getting together to help solve the problems of flooding in the National Capital Region?
Talayan, Tatalon are inundated by floods every time it rains. Before in the 60’s it would take usually 5 days for the floods to come. But now it is only two to three hours. Why so? Number one, the children and adults have not been taught to dispose of foils, styrofoams and glasses properly. Around school grounds one will find lots of vendors using plastic bags for ice candy and other snack foods. What do the school children and the parents do after finishing off the foodstuffs? Most of them just throw the plastic by the sidewalk. Where is the MetroAide to clean up the place? None. They are all at the main streets, sweeping, trying to give the foreign visitors a “clean” view of the cities. Are there wastecans along the streets? None. “Ninanakaw Ma’am, eh” that’s the reason given by local officials. So if they are stolen what should be done? Tie up the waste cans on posts, or build concrete rectangular bins and place huge plastic bags in them.
Look at Araneta Avenue and you will find that the sides of the streets have blocked waters causing that swishing scenery everytime vehicles pass by. What is the cause of this? Poor engineering. The public works contractor did not provide for a large canal to handle the rain waters. The level of the sidewalks are the same as the middle grounds. So when the rains fall they just stay on the road and clog up the sides making it very difficult for the passersby and commuters to negotiate their way to their destination or even to get into a jeepney. What is the solution here? Ban those public works contractors that shortchange the public.
Now what should we do with floods? If you will look at the creek at Tatalon from a bird’s eye viewpoint, you will note that it has the tendency to wind its way. The waters start to get voluminous when it reaches the bridge along E. Rodriguez and seems to get stuck before the UE Ramon Magsaysay Hospital. On its way to Mandaluyong, the waters turn very slowly. Hence the problem here is that the siltation in the creek causes the waters to go slot on its way to the Pasig Riverl Instead it gets stuck in the nearby barangay causing havoc on lives and property.
So what is the solution here? Creation of dikes and digging down the creek to make it deeper. Simple? Very simple. Why couldn’t they do these? Will. Political Will. POLITICAL WILL.
Everyday I see those MMDA platforms on the creek along E. Rodriguez. But do they move at all? I never saw anything being dumped there save some small pieces of waste papers at one time or another. Yet. It stays there 24 hours a day. The workers move oh so slowly, like zombies. And they are numerous all the time, yet their work hardly moves. The waters still rise and rise after two hours of rainfall. What is the solution here? Remove flood control projects from the government. Give it to non-government organizations whose members have the hearts and minds to solve the problem of flooding.
Again, Political Will. What animal is that, some would ask cynically. Yet that is the lifeblood of change in any society. Without the need to really make changes, our life will forever be a ground for lazy, uncommitted and corrupt government officials together with their contractors out to make a fast buck on any government project. Forget change. Forget patriotistm. Let us all migrate. Is that the solution they want us to make so that they can lord it over here for centuries.
But if the civil engineers in our country would really bond together, affirm their love of country and draw up a plan which could be whipped up from the Dutch lessons on solving their floods, I am sure, we would get somewhere.
Painting: Winter, or the Flood, 1660-64
by Nicolas Poussin
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