As I started to write this article, a dear friend succumbed to a bad arterial clot in his left leg. The doctors call it Acute Limb Ischemia. The artery that supplies fresh, nutrient-rich blood to his left leg got blocked by the clot. Without timely treatment, the condition could have caused his right leg to “die” and could have been amputated. I was worried for him, so I had put this on hold. He is now out of the woods, thankfully, so I resume as well.
The rain is so unpredictable in Dumaguete but so far, it hasn’t caught me while I was up and about on the boulevard. I frequent one of the older establishments there, one that has been around for 32 years.
I know this for a fact because I was there last year when they were celebrating their anniversary. It sits right on a corner, affording patrons a wide view of the boulevard.
The activity you witness around that place in late afternoon is so worth the sweat whipped out of you by the afternoon sun. The sidewalks are abuzz with foreigners and locals alike, while vehicles ply the streets in controlled chaos. No other place, anywhere, offers such a spectacle.
I am retired and, like many who are, I should just be doing nothing. After all, I’m at that age where I should not invest or save anymore, but just spend my money on me. However, even that bores me. So I look at things, people, and events around me, and I find a way to share what I see with others, just the way I perceive it. I do that in this column.
The other day, I was again at my favorite restaurant. I sat there with friends, some new, some old, all very accommodating, each with an opinion worth listening to. Our conversations always range from light banter to spirited discussions about anything, but especially about the City we all live in. Why? Because just being in this beloved City affects all of us in one way or another.
Some of them are resigned to the fact that as long as there are politicians involved in running the City, there is no recourse but to conform, to get used to the way it is, or turn blue complaining because nothing is going to happen anyway.Some think the struggle to turn things around should be never-ending.
Me, I think that people should not be afraid to call out politicians on their mistakes, inaction, and incompetence.
So as you can see, it is lively at this restaurant.
As we take breaks from our spirited discussions, we engage in light banter as well. Any light and inconsequential topic is welcome. One topic was about snorkels, the kind on vehicles.
Ever since I arrived in Dumaguete, I’ve been seeing so many pickup trucks and SUVs sporting air intake snorkels. They are named such because they look like snorkels that skin divers use to breathe underwater. Snorkels keep vehicles from “drowning” when they cross rivers or streams, and the water depth is higher that the engine’s normal air intake. But why install them here when we no longer cross rivers to go from town to town? It couldn’t be a hobby either because these vehicles are immaculately clean. It could be that the owners just want their vehicles to look mean and ready for World War III. The latter is what everyone believes the answer to be.
Me? I think they want to show off by putting anything and everything they could buy, on their vehicles. Why, some even have snow ski racks. Imagine that! If that’s not vanity, I don’t know what is.
Then we go back to the spirited discussion from such a silly topic. And so, this is how we spend our time at our favorite restaurant.
In the course of my everyday wanderings around Dumaguete, I routinely take the shortcut at the overflow near the BIR office (BIR overflow). It is a shorter route even with the same traffic disorderliness as everywhere else. But before I knew of this shortcut, I was already aware of the one that connects to Colon St. at the back of Foundation University. I no longer take that one, though, because last year, I made the mistake of going through there, only to find out that the overflow had been closed to cars because of damage, allowing passage only for pedestrians and small motorcycles. I guess I did not see the sign; or was there ever one?
The last time I saw Banica River in a rage was almost 40 years ago. When I see the overflow now, it looks like it’s never been washed over by a torrential flood–the water level is so low.
At the BIR overflow, the approach and departure are rutted, rough, eroded, and looks like it has never been paved or seen any repair efforts.
Come on, Dumaguete City, if this is the best you can give your people now, at least show them that you care a little–repair the ruts!
There are still so many roads within the boundaries of Dumaguete that I have not driven on because they simply did not exist before. I am slowly finding them and when I do, I take them only to find out where they lead. In doing so, I was surprised to find that many of them intersected at some point, which is good.
If there were signs at the entry points of these roads, commuting to and from places in the City would be much easier. People would know exactly which roads to take to go where they want to go. No mistakes, no trials.
But if little, annoyingly dangerous ruts could not even be repaired, I think signs, for all the roads, would be out of the question.
But why worry about signs when I think these roads are only meant for people who already know where they lead to. New arrivals, sorry, but you’re just going to have to guess, possibly get lost, and learn. Every commute will be an adventure, though.
Last Tuesday, my wife and I were on our way to the boulevard. She was meeting her friends and I, mine. We took the BIR overflow for the nth time. As it had been raining hard in the mornings the past couple of days, I expected the water to be a little higher than usual, but it looked the same as always. I slowed down at the approach because of the rut, and my wife said, “Good thing this river is almost dry, or it would probably be flooded now.” It was just a remark that came out of nowhere.
Then it dawned on me. At last, I figured out the answer to why those pickup trucks have snorkels–in case they had to cross the overflow during a flood. Yeah, such a good thing to have on your pickup truck, indeed.
But it is such an unfair idea that people have to be forced to ford a river when a bridge could be constructed to avoid such a dangerous endeavor, not to mention primitive, in contrast to the City’s quite avantgarde posturing.
It’s such a shame that today, we’re still dealing with having to cross an overflow instead of a bridge. This has been the case since I was a kid. I’m sure someone who is much older than me, say, 90 years old, would say the same thing as well. The year is now 2019 and STILL no bridge.
I was still thinking about the river when we got home that evening, in bed. I was imagining crossing it at the overflow in slow traffic, and then a flash flood came roaring toward us. Our car was swept away, tumbling, hitting boulders, with us trapped inside, and me trying desperately to locate my tactical pen to break the window so we could escape certain death from drowning. I was awake thinking of this, but it felt like I was asleep, having a nightmarish dream without the sudden, alarmed, sweaty awakening.
My goodness, that would really suck, if it were real. If it were, though, who would I blame that’s worth blaming?
Would there be a city official or group of city officials who would take some ownership for such a catastrophe? I think not, even if, really, it could have been because of their dillydallying, their inaction.
The Mayor has already disclosed that the City has found the money to fund the construction of two bridges to replace the spillways at the BIR and the one behind Foundation University. He has expressed confidence that the projects could be started this year.
Likewise, the Representative for the 2nd District has expressed support for the project by indicating that he will allocate the same amount as the City has pegged, in the 2019 budget.
Well, that sounds like good news to me, especially if everything has been truthfully disclosed.
As I drive through the usual spillway almost daily, I do not see any indication that major construction work is about to begin. There is no sign advising motorists that the spillway will be closed on such and such a date to start construction. If this was first disclosed in January this year, it is almost July, and it hasn’t started yet.
When it comes to knowing how time flies, no one is naive. In a seeming blink of an eye, it will be the end of 2019, and then they’d have to cook up another excuse why the project was never started within the timeframe they had set.
And like some people in our spirited discussions at the restaurant have said, you conform, or turn blue complaining. How sad, really, if it had to come to that.
The overflow, as I call them, or the spillway, as they call them, are not just that–they are fatal accidents just waiting to happen.
One of these days, someone will get killed in some seemingly-unlikely accident caused by nature at its worse. Oh, nature does not care. It always leaves it to humans to protect themselves against it because it will run its course, no matter what we do.
The only control we have is in the things that we can build, and in the precautions we can take. How urgently do we have to protect ourselves, as a City of people?
Well, that depends on how important we are to those entrusted with the task of keeping us safe.
If complacency has taken its toll on the very City officials responsible for this project, let them be reminded because if even one fatal accident should occur at either of these spillways, it would be one too many. So, would that be acceptable while we wait?
After so many decades and after all the economic progress they have bragged about, would 50, even 100 million pesos be too much to keep Dumaguete’s now-too-many beloved motorists safe? Is the City willing to pull the plug on some other less urgent projects, if need be, to build the bridges?
In this case, we should opt for the way it should be, instead of the way it is.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
