Flash floods mar Urdaneta City‘s beauty

By Jun Velasco

URDANETA City’s much improved infrastructure development  such as the radical widening of the highway right in central poblacion (thank you, Congressman Mark Cojuangco and Mayor Amadito Perez!) is being stymied by flash floods  that  cause traffic jam  at the slightest drop of rain.

Residents tell us the floods were due to the new subdivision in Barangay Pinmaludpud more than a kilometer away. They insist their flooding woes began after the appearance of the subdivision.

What does our friend, anti flood genius Director Fidel Ginez say?  Or is this a case of sloppy city planning? 

 Urdaneta City is an LGU of substance under a no kidding executive (Amadito Perez), so it must be presumed it has a zoning ordinance.

 Those who love to tinker with the city’s flooding problem, a new phenomenon, they say, say   it’s too late now to correct the oversight.

 Which reminds us of Metro Manila’s chronic flooding during rainy days. Old Manilans say that  Manila used to be a river and  it’s now  sitting on a landfill.

A natural river was tampered with, and flooding during the monsoon months (June to August) should be a natural consequence. Water seeks its own level, everyone knows that.

Dagupan City officials, too, are on the same boat.  A new mall in Arellano-Bani has created new swimming pools at a little downpour. The pools extend up to Di-Or Village where one not so sunny day Gons Duque spotted tycoon Tony Manas, holding an umbrella, sloshing through the floodwaters reaching his waist.

Local flooding experts should get an idea from Mayor Jolly Resuello of then flood-prone San Carlos City.  What did he do?

In 1999, the mayor was a butt of nasty stories when he went into a digging blitz people thought he was looking for some hidden treasure. It turned out he was mobilizing a phalanx of diggers restoring old and long soil-covered rivers and creeks.

 Since then, Amputi Layag country doesn’t experience floods anymore, even if it is at the receiving end of flood waters from Bayambang, Malasiqui, Alcala and Sta. Barbara towns.  We told Director Fidel Ginez about the San Carlos anti flood story, which could be a less expensive model. We heard billions worth of money have been spent  to build the Agno Flood Control dike decades before Fidel Ginez was born, and   the managers have come and gone and were not successful at it. Maybe, as the god of war Sun Tzu, has ingeniously posited, “why fight, when you can seal peace though dialogue?” Why build millions worth of dike when you can guide the flow of the river?

Common sense is not common?

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Not a few foreigner-friends in Manila are grateful to Immigration Commissioner Al Fernandez for the dispatch with which he acts on their travel problems when they are Manila.

A case in point involves a Turkish friend who complained of being given a run around by some not so smart guys at Al’s turf.

We would usually call up Al such as last Wednesday to help these distressed people and the job is done in seconds! BM Vittorio was profuse with thanks to Commissioner Fernandez for his swift action.

Vittorio is just one of the many aliens we’ve met who think Al is a model Philippine public servant.

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 We saw an eye-popping document detailing rampant “robbery” at the Tondaligan coastline.

Tondaligan was coined by the late radioman Greg Alcaide to mean “a place to stop at and enjoy,” meaning, in short, park. Tonda means stop and liga means joy. It has been reserved by law as a national park and is therefore beyond the commerce of man.

But the report says millions worth of government property has been titled to private persons. If true, there must have been collusion between and among certain government officials which makes a mockery of the government’s anti corruption drive.   

More on this in future issues.

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