Officials Praise Iteration as “Learning Process”; Residents Praise It as “Employment Program”

Quezon City Mayor Inaugurates 14th Anti-Flood Project in Same Flood-Prone Street

Officials Praise Iteration as “Learning Process”; Residents Praise It as “Employment Program”

Quezon City Mayor Angelica Reyes-Castillo held a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for the fourteenth consecutive anti-flooding intervention on Malumanay Street in Barangay Teachers Village — a 200-meter road that floods with a consistency hydrologists describe as “impressive” and residents describe as “clockwork.” The newest project, PHP 12 million in drainage rehabilitation and road re-elevation, follows canal widening (twice), concrete channel replacement (three times), rainwater box culvert installation (twice), a retention pond decommissioned after eight months when it became a mosquito habitat, and a pump station that works when there is electricity, which there is not during the typhoons that cause flooding. “This time,” the mayor said, breaking ground to moderate applause, “we’ve identified the core issue” — an undersized outfall drain 800 meters away in a neighboring barangay, a fact residents have submitted to the complaint log since 2011. The project does not include the outfall drain, which falls under a different budget, a different department, and a different barangay. Aling Rufina, 63, thirty-year resident, watched from her second-floor balcony — the floor she moves to annually from June to October. “Every time they come, they take photos with us,” she said. “We’ve gotten good at the photos.” Her nephew has worked on four of the fourteen projects. “It’s steady work,” she said. “I just wish they’d fix it.”

SOURCE: Bohiney News.