Analyzing the core
Just as the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration continuously notes an “increase in the number of tropical cyclones with maximum sustained winds of 150 km per hour and above (typhoon category) during the El Niño years,” Albay is at it again for being a model on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) as the construction of the 2.1 billion-peso Urban Drainage Improvement Project (UDIP) has just been finished on time for the La Niña season.
For many years, the government and non-government organizations’ initiative in having DRRM on top of their minds have paid off for many people in and outside the province. Most of these however, as we observed it, have been reactive, resulting to some locals’ reluctant approach in dealing with calamities. Solving that attitude is the UDIP–a system that features wider roads, elevated bridges, floodgates, and three pumping stations–meant to save the people’s lives way ahead of a natural disaster.
While it is commendable on the government’s part to come up with the UDIP and finish it on time, the infrastructure’s capacity, however, poses a doubtful future because of two reasons:
First, the pumping systems that are placed along strategic places in Legazpi were copied from the pumping stations by the MMDA which were originally patterned from a project by the Japan International Cooperaion Agency.
Second, while it is a relief to know that the infrastructure we funded can be as reliable as we want to be (since it’s from Japan), we can’t help but wonder how would these three pumping systems fare to the city’s vulnerability to floods if 54 of the same infrastructure erected across Metro Manila fail to do so on their own?
Here’s the thing: perennial flooding on cities that are fated to be flooded will always remain unsolved. Legazpi City and Metro Manila would probably never be free from flooding as the geography of the latter, according to former MMDA chair Francis Tolentino, is basically a catch basin of water from the highlands and provinces neighboring it. Legazpi City, likewise, has a below sea-level geography and was built on rivers and mangrove swamps that once bordered its magnificent deep water port.
While it is saddening that some serious problems cannot be solved despite pairing it with serious solutions, as anywhere else, flooding is not easy, and will never be easy to be solved, no matter the number and strength of an infrastructure aimed at combating it.
The least everyone could do is hope that the DENR and other agencies concerned at establishing the UDIP made due diligence beforehand. We do not insult the brains behind the UDIP, but we just hope they realized that the main source of flooding in the city is the city itself.
While we render the construction of the pumping systems a bit useless, a pretty good recommendation would’ve been that the rest of the 2.1 billion pesos should have just been spent on the reconstruction/elevation of more bridges and further improvement of drainage networks.
Because surely, in the future years, maintenance of the pumping system will be the next big thing that will daunt the city and the government, as past observations have shown.
