After the Rain

FLOOD! That's what comes after every rain here in the Philippines! Never mind if the rain is heavy or not. The drainage system here is really disappointing.

In Cebu, the first storm for the year is about to hit come Wednesday. The heavy rain a couple of weeks ago has left our local government scrambling to clear the silted rivers. As a result, what would take years to remove squatters took only a day or two, without much ado. Also, public schools are being condemned since they trap students during floods. New classrooms are being promised for the next school year... Well, well... word has it that the rain will go on until May, wet summer for the sunny Philippines. So I guess these developments are acceptable to everyone. Even those whose houses were demolished.

I just wish that they would do something to keep those demolished houses from rising up again after the sun peeps out for a week or more. A river is supposed to have three meters of easements at both sides. This means that no one should build on that easement. To do so would be like building on the road. The problem with these squatters is that they think that if the land is owned the government, then it should be given to them for free.. that they have all the rights to it (all to themselves!). Anyway, the local government here made plans to develop that easement into a park or something, following models from Singapore. This is the best time to do it... unless they want to be assured of the best kickbacks...

The proposed schools for next semester also caught my attention. In my previous blog I referred to a competition to design the Millennium School. The winning design is supposed to be ideal for the current situation. Someone should tell the mayor to consider studying the prototype.

This is also the time to see how we can harvest the rain since there will be plenty of it. There are so many things we can do productively instead of complaining about the rain and calling for the sun (which will change to complaining about the sun and calling for the rain when it starts to get hot).