Negros Daily Bulletin
November 26, 2007

Heart of the Matter
by Edgar Cadagat
Outraged by Anti-BAHA Alliance

FLOOD DESTROYS ONE'S PATIENCE. It is always said that in terms of news and news coverages, as editors would say it, "No News is good news."

This means that when a dog bites a man, this is not news because it happens in everyday life. It is only news when the dog is rabid, for example, and goes on a rampage, biting say, a dozen of people sending them on to the hospital for treatment.

It is the same with floods. Floods happen all over the country making people's lives miserable. Years ago, floods unleashed by sustained and heavy rains, not only caused waist-high waters but flowed into backyards and into apartments complete with soft, dirty, slithering mud. It took us a whole day to clean up the mud and muck, also sending us cursing beneath our breaths.

That was more than 15 years ago, an experience our journalist's brain remembers in small details. That flood broke our patience. Thus, too, did it to members of the Anti-Baha Alliance which makes us understand what and how they feel about the situation.

AN EQUALIZER. Like the second world war, or more so nature's onslaughts, the flood has become an equalizer as the declaration of those in the Anti-Baha Alliance showed. Not only are the poor affected but the well-heeled residents of posh subdivisions as well. Those affected have insisted concrete efforts and not mere promises would now do, drawing the line against those in the local government which it said have failed to do their homework and have been engaged in finger-pointing, instead.

LONG TERM SOLUTION NEEDED. But everyone agrees that a long-term solution to the problem of flooding is needed. Clearing the waterways including the creeks, rivers and canals will no longer do. On the other hand, a comprehensive building of a drainage system in Bacolod City is needed but which will take years to do. Before this, a survey must be conducted, studies done. But with residents in Banago, Sta. Clara, Capitolville, ERORECO, Mountain View and nearby subdivisions affected by the flooding, those in the city government were forced to create a task force to deal with the problem.

Thus, dredging of the Banago River, surrounding waterways and clearing and cleaning of canals are to be done.

Unfortunately, urban poor residents whose houses have been sitting on waterways have to be transferred to facilitate the clearing, Bobby Rojas of the city government's task force on clearing said.

A HUGE PROBLEM. Those other areas of the city could emulate the example of the Anti-Baha Alliance especially in Northern portion of the city, likewise demanding that something should be done to either minimize or prevent floodings even when it rains normally. This will prove to be a problem to officials of the city government, primarily, Mayor Evelio Leonardia, who could lose political ground if he is perceived to be lackadaisical in responding to the demand for solving the problem.

Laying blame on others won't do now because the fired-up members of the Anti-Baha Alliance could mount a sustained lobby giving rise to a public perception that his administration is inept, even more so, incompetent.*