[Pastilan] The price of neglect in Iligan

Nature, at the least, has been constant. It’s Iligan’s officers who appear to be persisting in demonstrating that consistency needn’t be realized.

Late final week, Iligan Metropolis as soon as once more realized what it means to be ruled by inattention.

Tropical Storm Basyang (Penha), DXIC-Radio Mindanao Community reported, left at the least 5 individuals lifeless and displaced over 6,000 households – roughly 24,000 human beings – because it turned 27 barangays into digital swamps. That’s greater than half town. 

Iligan was paralyzed. Streets are clogged with mud and particles, visitors has floor to a close to standstill, and the native authorities has launched 24-hour road-clearing operations to attempt to restore order.

DXIC mentioned at the least 72 homes have been destroyed, 152 broken, and over 300 extra have been submerged. Naturally, evacuation facilities overflowed, whereas emergency groups scrambled like understudies in a tragicomedy scripted years in the past.

Then got here the anticipated authorities rituals. Metropolis corridor declared a state of calamity, unlocking reserved funds. The Division of Commerce and Business (DTI) adopted, imposing a 60-day value freeze on necessities. Residents have been urged to report overpricing and hoarding. And all of the whereas, the efficiency of the federal government carried on as if responding have been the identical as stopping.

Iligan ought to have identified higher. In 2011, Tropical Storm Sendong (Washi) tore by means of Iligan and its neighbor, Cagayan de Oro, killing, displacing, and exposing structural weaknesses. It has been repeated in February 2026. Sendong ought to have been a tough lesson; as a substitute, it turned only a dangerous reminiscence, and never a information to motion. Almost 15 years later, Basyang arrived not as a shock, however as proof that town’s officers selected to neglect.

Maybe it’s time for Iliganons to scrutinize, with unflinching eyes, each flood management undertaking supposedly constructed since Sendong in 2011. The information of each public works official, congressman, and mayor who has held workplace since should be examined.

Two mayors have presided over town on this span – Celso Regencia and now Frederick Siao, who traded locations within the 2022 elections. Lawrence Cruz, who was mayor when Sendong struck, and former congressman Varf Belmonte must also be requested, bluntly and publicly, what they did within the instant aftermath of that catastrophe – or whether or not inaction was all the time their default coverage.

Let’s drop the comforting discuss of destiny. Final week’s flooding was not divine whimsy, however a predictable, completely preventable results of human neglect and bureaucratic incompetence. Nature did what nature does. Folks did not act.

Cagayan de Oro confronted the identical storm – heavy rain and robust winds – however didn’t endure the identical diploma of devastation. The distinction might lie in foresight: after Sendong, it seems the federal government moved quick to construct a JICA-funded “mega dike” alongside the Cagayan River, a construction stretching a number of kilometers that possible saved riverside areas from the worst.

In 2011, the identical river mercilessly overflowed and flattened communities in Cagayan de Oro. At the very least, the appearance of planning, funding, engineering, and collaboration might have spelled a distinction, so it appears. In Iligan, against this, negligence appears to have been the one architect at work.

Rivers exist to hold water away, but in Iligan they’ve reportedly been narrowed, choked, and constrained, whereas the areas they drain have grown recklessly. These bottlenecks are harmful traps that might flip even an strange rainfall into disaster. On February 6, the Tubod and Mandulog Rivers did what physics calls for: they turned swollen and overflowed within the worst-hit areas.

City planners are usually not ignorant. They know what should be completed: widen the channels, dredge the silt, transfer households out of hurt’s method, and take away unlawful encroachments. What seems to be lacking in Iligan is the need to spend on prevention slightly than propaganda, the need to decide on substance over spectacle. But we’re advised that concrete adorned town the place water ought to have flowed, and public funds have been allegedly spent on beauty tasks to the delight of the cameras and contractors. And the rivers? They remained clogged. 

Let’s reduce to the chase: Sendong was the warning, and Basyang must be sufficient to drive the lesson residence. Rivers overflow not as a result of they’re whimsical however as a result of people make them incapable of doing their job. And so, they’ll swell and spill each single time.

Till Iligan treats its rivers as techniques to be managed and public funds as a belief slightly than a possibility for self-importance, harmful floods will return. And it’s not as a result of the rain is extraordinary, however as a result of negligence is recurring, celebrated even, within the corridors of energy.

Nature, at the least, has been constant. It’s Iligan’s officers who appear to be persisting in demonstrating that consistency needn’t be realized. Pastilan. – Rappler.com