Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon reportedly wants to revive the plan following his visit to Cebu after the recent flooding, beginning with the linking of disconnected drainage systems in Mandaue City.
Interesting! But let us ask a more uncomfortable question: Why are we still talking about a 2017 plan in 2026?
Nine years is a long time in a rapidly growing metropolis. Cebu has changed. Its population has increased, subdivisions and commercial establishments have mushroomed, roads and concrete surfaces have expanded, waterways have been narrowed or obstructed, and the volume of garbage generated every day is enormous.
Rainfall patterns and the intensity of downpours have also become matters that the government can no longer dismiss.
Revive the 2017 master plan — but do not simply dust it off and assume that what was appropriate in 2017 remains sufficient in 2026.
The plan must first be subjected to a thorough review. Cebu’s problem has never been a shortage of plans. It is the failure to faithfully implement them.
Linking disconnected drainage systems, as proposed by Secretary Dizon, makes sense. Water does not understand political boundaries. A drainage system in one city cannot be designed as though the water will politely stop at the city limits.
But connecting drainage systems is only part of the solution. If the government merely connects one clogged or undersized drainage system to another, this will not eliminate flooding. It may simply transfer the problem from one neighborhood to another.
The same principle applies to rivers and waterways. If one area is cleared while the downstream channel remains constricted, silted, or filled with garbage, the water will eventually find its own way — into people’s homes, streets and businesses.
This is where the rarely remembered Republic Act (RA) 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, enters the picture. Our government planners, with due respect, have a tendency to treat garbage and flooding as two separate problems, which should not be the case.
RA 9003 has been the law for more than 25 years. It mandates waste segregation at the source, proper collection, recycling and recovery, and environmentally sound disposal. It assigns significant responsibilities to local government units and barangays.
Yet after 25 years, we continue to see plastic bottles, food containers, sachets, discarded packaging and other rubbish thrown into streets, canals, creeks and waterways. When the heavy rains come, they clog the drainage, inundating houses and businesses.
Then the government begins searching again for a new flood-control solution. But how many flood-control projects can we build if we continue allowing our waterways to become garbage receptacles? A billion-peso drainage project can be defeated by a few truckloads of garbage.
That is not an exaggeration. A drainage system is designed to carry water. It was never designed to carry the accumulated solid waste of a city.
Therefore, the revival of the 2017 master plan should not be confined to DPWH engineers drawing up bigger canals, larger drainage pipes, and additional flood-control structures. It should become a Metro Cebu-wide program involving the DPWH, the provincial government, cities, municipalities, barangays, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Metropolitan Cebu Water District, among others.
At the local level, enforcement of RA 9003 must be treated as a core part of flood-control policy.
Barangays must know where their garbage goes. Collection must be regular. Segregation must actually happen — not merely appear in ordinances and posters. Illegal dumping must be punished. Creeks and drainage channels must be kept free of solid waste. And officials must be held accountable when these basic responsibilities are ignored.
The government cannot keep spending taxpayers’ money to correct problems that it allowed to persist.
Flood control is not merely an engineering problem. It is a governance problem.
Engineers can design drainage systems. Contractors can build them. DPWH can fund them. But if local governments permit waterways to be obstructed, allow garbage to accumulate, and fail to enforce existing environmental laws, the engineering solution will eventually amount to nada.
Metro Cebu cannot solve a metropolitan problem through isolated city-by-city projects as water flows from one jurisdiction to another. The same goes for government policy.
Water has no political party. It does not vote. It does not recognize city limits. It simply follows gravity. The government should do the same — follow the science, rather than political boundaries.
Secretary Dizon deserves credit for going to Cebu and looking for a solution instead of merely waiting for another flood to subside.
But reviving a nine-year-old plan should come with a very important condition: update it, fund it, implement it, and finish it.
Publish the timetable, too. Cebuanos have heard enough announcements and seen enough groundbreaking ceremonies. What they need now are finished projects and functioning drainage systems.
While DPWH is reconnecting drainage systems, local governments should reconnect themselves with RA 9003, which has been sitting on the books since 2001. If the government finally enforces it, perhaps the next flood-control master plan will have a fighting chance.
Otherwise, we may be here again in another nine years—discussing the same flooding, blaming the same garbage, studying another master plan, and repeating the same question: Why did we allow this to happen again?