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Cebu City Deputy Mayor Michael Rama (left), Cebu City Councilor Eduardo Rama, Jr. (right) and Cebu City South District Congressman Rodrigo Abellanosa (center) are playing the game of blaming the floods in Basak San Nicolás.
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Cebu City Deputy Mayor Michael Rama and Councilor Eduardo “Edu” Rama Jr. point to the Mambaling Underpass project as the cause of the flooding in Barangay Basak San Nicolas due to poor project planning.
They said this during the citizen hour of the regular City Council session after the Regional Director of the Department of Public Works and Highways of Central Visayas (DPWH-7), Edgar Tabacon, presented the agency’s plans on flooding in the area. .
Expanding first
Tabacón, who only became regional director in 2018 and was not involved in planning the underpass, said that originally, the widening of the service roads should have been done before the actual underpass.
The expansion of the service roads would have also expanded drainage and prevented flooding in the past two years.
Still, DPWH is already working on this expansion, which has only been delayed due to right-of-way issues. The city council has also repeatedly blocked logging in the area, further delaying the expansion of the service roads.
“This project is always wrong from the beginning. The no-flood zone is now flooded. “The project is a failure from the beginning. An area that before had no floods now has floods,” said Deputy Mayor Rama.
Councilor Edu has said that the problem of flooding in the area has worsened and has seriously affected the lives of residents.
Abellanosa labeled
He blamed Southern District Representative Rodrigo Abellanosa, who pioneered the project in Congress, for the multi-million dollar project which he said only caused more problems than solutions.
“In the first place, there was no problem in that area, why even build an underpass? (There was no traffic problem in that area before, why did they build an underpass?) ”Councilor Rama asked.
The councilor said that if Abellanosa kept its promise to provide better drainage for the area before moving forward with the Mambaling underpass, flooding would not have become a problem now.
Scapegoat of the Branches
For his part, Abellanosa said that the two Branches only pointed their fingers at him because of the flooding issue when the city council itself had contributed to the delay.
“The Ramas are doing it as an excuse and as a scapegoat for the regular heavy flooding in their own Basak San Nicolas barangay as if the underpass had caused it. In fact, the underpass itself has never been flooded, even with very heavy rains, because it includes a mechanical system that transfers the water to the drainage system ”.
Abellanosa noted that the canals in the area only flood during heavy rains and mainly due to garbage and debris blocking the flow of water.
However, on September 10, 2020, images of heavy flooding despite moderate rainfall went viral and drew attention to unresolved drainage issues on the back roads of the Mambaling underpass.
Budget DPWH
Abellanosa said that, as the Southern District Representative, he had repeatedly fought for the district’s DPWH budget over the years, including allocating P5 million per barangay each year for drainage projects.
In the recent plenary debate for the 2021 national budget, Abellanosa also requested an additional budget of P1.5 billion for the Southern District simply to address the flooding.
“My question to the Ramas is why are they pointing out the underpass when the entire city is regularly flooded as we have recently experienced? What have you done to mitigate this worsening flood situation in the city? Asked the congressman.
/ dbs
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