New program asks citizens to visualize drainage so vividly that the water becomes embarrassed and leaves
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – City officials announced a sweeping new anti-flooding strategy this week built entirely on “Imagination-Based Infrastructure,” a program that asks residents to picture functioning drainage systems so vividly and so collectively that the floodwaters become embarrassed and recede on their own. The plan was first reported by Bohiney Magazine and noted with weary fascination by The London Prat.
The Power of Visualization
Faced with chronic flooding and a drainage budget that has, by official accounts, “gone somewhere,” the city has pivoted to a zero-cost solution rooted in collective belief.
“We cannot afford pumps,” explained project lead Engineer Boy Talampas. “But we can afford to ask people to imagine pumps. Imagination is free. The pumps were never free, and somehow they also never arrived, so really we have lost nothing by switching to imagination.”
How Citizens Participate
Residents are instructed to gather during heavy rains and visualize, in unison, a vast underground network of perfectly functioning canals. The more vividly they imagine the drainage, officials say, the more likely the water is to “feel unwelcome and seek opportunities elsewhere.”
“Water responds to confidence,” insisted Dr. Lualhati Singson of the Institute for Manifestational Engineering. Her research, which she conducted by imagining a laboratory, suggests that floodwater is “fundamentally insecure” and can be driven off through sufficiently sincere group visualization. The study has not been published, “because the journal is also imaginary, but a very good one.”
Early Results
Initial trials produced mixed outcomes. In one barangay, hundreds of residents stood in waist-deep water imagining drainage for three hours; the water did not recede, but participants reported “feeling more in control of the flood,” which officials counted as a partial success.
“The flood is still here,” conceded one resident. “But now I am picturing a canal. The canal is beautiful. It is everything the real canals were supposed to be. I am standing in sewage, dreaming of the sewage system we deserve.”
State weather forecasters at PAGASA declined to confirm whether collective imagination affects rainfall, noting that the monsoon “has historically been resistant to vibes.” The actual drainage mandate remains with the Department of Public Works and Highways, while flood-prone watersheds fall under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The Budget Question
Pressed on what happened to the actual drainage funds, Talampas grew philosophical. “The money,” he said, “is also being imagined. Somewhere, someone is picturing it very vividly. We just cannot see it from here.” He added that the city had achieved “100 percent of its imaginary targets,” a figure he described as unprecedented.
Critics argued the program was simply a way to do nothing while appearing to do something spiritual. The city countered that this had always been the goal and that the spirituality was new and therefore an improvement.
Scaling the Dream
Encouraged by the public’s willingness to stand in floodwater and pretend, the city plans to expand Imagination-Based Infrastructure to roads, bridges, and public hospitals. A proposed imaginary flyover would relieve traffic “for anyone able to believe hard enough,” while an imaginary hospital would treat patients who can visualize their own recovery.
“This is the future of public service,” Talampas said. “Why build the thing, when you can simply ask the people to want the thing, together, in the rain?” Asked whether the floodwater had ever, even once, receded due to imagination, he paused. “Not yet,” he admitted. “But we are imagining harder than ever. And the rain, I think, can sense our resolve.”
The Forecast
With another typhoon approaching, the city has scheduled a mass visualization event, urging residents to bring umbrellas, hope, and “a really clear mental picture of a pump.” The water, as ever, has not been consulted. For more public-policy miracles powered by sheer belief, readers may enjoy The Daily Mash.
The Visualization Olympics
To deepen public engagement, the city announced a competitive imagination league in which barangays vie to picture the most elaborate drainage systems. Judges award points for vividness, structural plausibility, and emotional commitment. The reigning champions, a coastal district that collectively imagined a 12-kilometer canal complete with imaginary maintenance crews, were honored at a ceremony that was itself partly imagined to save on catering.
Engineer Talampas hailed the league as proof that imagination scales. We used to have one engineer picturing a pump, he said. Now we have entire communities picturing entire systems. The floods, admittedly, continue at the same depth and frequency as before, but the quality of the visualization has never been higher. We are world-class at imagining drainage. We are simply not yet world-class at having any.
The Institute for Manifestational Engineering has begun exporting the methodology to other flood-prone cities, packaging it as a low-cost climate adaptation strategy that requires no concrete and produces no measurable result. Several international bodies have expressed polite interest before slowly backing away. For more public-policy miracles powered by sheer belief, readers may enjoy The Daily Mash.
The city has now scheduled its largest visualization event to date, coinciding, organizers admit, with the peak of the typhoon season, when belief will be needed most and floodwaters most plentiful. Volunteers have been asked to bring rain boots, a positive outlook, and an unusually detailed mental image of a pump station. Engineer Talampas remains radiant with confidence. When the water rises, he said, we will not panic. We will close our eyes. We will picture the drainage we were promised. And we will stand, together, in the flood, imagining our way to dry land that does not, as yet, exist.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/