Waterworld
ILOILO CITY is a flood-prone area no doubt, what with its poor drainage facilities and shrinking waterways that could no longer accommodate floodwaters from the Tigum-Aganan watershed area, causing a massive deluge as the two rivers merge at the outskirts of Jaro to form the now narrow Salog river. But flooding takes place only when there is heavy rain, and not when there’s none. That is why it is surprising that these past days, overflows happen despite the absence of a downpour. Notably, this phenomenon occurs during high tide.
Just on June 5, when humankind was marking World Environment Day, seawater invaded Valeria Street and the Iloilo Terminal Market surroundings. The settlement found along a fishpond area in Barangay Tabucan, Mandurriao at the western tip of the old airport runway was also submerged in water. Based on tide prediction calendars, June 5’s high tide hit 2.1 meters at 11 a. m., pushing the water up the drainage lines that were supposed to exit at Muelle Loney and Rizal, and to sink low-lying areas by the Iloilo River.
Iloilo City is barely above sea level but the Iloilo River, which is actually an estuarine, is ready to welcome seawater when it rises. That has been one of the many functions of the Iloilo River for centuries. But siltation and reclamation along its banks have caused it to shrink in depth, length and breadth. Remember Aesop’s fable about a thirsty crow who found a pitcher containing some water, albeit too little and low to reach? In order to quench her thirst, the crow dropped pebbles into the pitcher, making the water level to rise and she was able to drink eventually. Simply put, if we take space from water, water will take its space back.
We blame a number of factors, with human activities as their common denominator. The garbage that people throw in the river contributes to siltation. Encroachment and reclamation took away some sizable space from this once grand body of water. The construction of a boulevard from Lapaz to Tabucan, Mandurriao may reduce traffic and beautify the city somehow, but in the end, it will exact a heavy toll on our environment, and may cause more harm than good - unless measures are undertaken to return to the river the space that it has lost, like dredging it all the way up to the outskirts of Villa.
Not only Iloilo River is shrinking but also its tributaries like the Calajunan and Dungon creeks. Historical accounts even revealed that during the Spanish era, lorchas would dock at a small port behind the Jaro market to ferry goods and farm produce. We can just imagine how wide and deep the Dungon creek was then. Now, who would dare paddle there? A small banca may even run aground amongst garbage because it is now heavily silted with trash.
But then, not only city residents can be blamed from the shrinking of the river. Environment officials say that the massive cutting of trees in the Maasin watershed area back in the 70s also made a big contribution to its siltation. Deforestation, according to them, causes the erosion of top soil in the mountains, especially when heavy rains hit denuded watersheds. Flood waters then carry silt down low-lying areas, depositing them bodies of water like the Iloilo River. Down the ecological web, siltation damages coral reefs – the spawning ground of fishes – affecting our food supply. And so on and so forth…
Joey Ayala puts it succinctly in ethnic melody, “Ang lahat ng bagay ay magkaugnay, magkaugnay ang lahat (All things are interconnected)… Tayo ay nakasakay sa mundong naglalakbay (We are all passengers in this revolving world)… Pocahontas also sang, “We are all connected to each other… In a circle, in a hoop that never ends.” And more than a century ago, the Indian chief Seattle spoke, “This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
Indeed, everything is interconnected. We cannot isolate the flooding that occurs in Iloilo City — even if there is no rain — from what we do to the earth and from what’s happening elsewhere. We can even safely assume that this is linked to the global warming phenomenon where a number of scientists have observed that as the earth’s temperature rises, polar ice caps melt causing a rise in the ocean’s water level.
According to reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had predicted in 2001 that the average global sea level would rise by between 11 cm (4.3 in) and 77 cm (30.3 in) by 2100 due to melting ice caps. It was even predicted that if the Greenland ice cap ever melted completely, sea level will rise by an average of 6.5 meters, or about 21 feet, more than enough to drown all the world’s low-lying islands and even some entire nations, like Holland.
The post-apocalyptic 1995 movie Waterworld serves as a warning that if we continue to ravage the earth, it will go into hiding, forcing the future generation to endlessly search for it – for dry land. But Waterworld is not the future but now. It is already happening – once in a while, during high tide – in Valeria Street, at the Iloilo Terminal Market area and in low-lying areas along the Iloilo River. Should we wait for the entire Iloilo City to sink before we start addressing this terrifying reality?
The earth is crying, agonizing in pain, and we may all just wake up one morning finding its tears flooding our homes, our schools, our plazas, our churches and our entire city. And no candy can appease it.
Photo above courtesy of Panay News
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