Flooding still a problem–Makati mayor Binay

Flood on Buendia Avenue, Makati, taken on Aug. 19, 2013. INQUIRER.net PHOTO BY MATIKAS SANTOS

Motorists driving through Makati City know the drill: a few minutes of heavy rain are all it takes to flood several major streets and intersections in the city. After roads became impassable due to floods caused by heavy downpours last week, Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay reiterated his call for the national government to intensify its unclogging and drainage improvement operations.

Binay also asked the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and Department of Public Works and Highways to implement measures to prevent flooding on major roads, resulting in heavy traffic.

“The floods were even worse especially on Thursday, and many commuters had to wade through waist-deep [water] when traffic came to a standstill in many parts of Makati and the metropolis,” Binay said.

According to the mayor, it is the national government’s responsibility to take “drastic measures to spare long-suffering motorists from the bane of traffic gridlock often occurring during heavy rains.”

Earlier, Makati’s engineering and public works department reported that it had finished the repair and improvement of the city’s dredging system. In particular, it cited the installation of new concrete pipes and the completion of road reblocking projects in 16 barangays (villages).

The city government noted that during heavy rains, the streets in Makati’s low-lying barangays end up submerged in floodwaters that would take more than an hour to recede.

But Binay said that with the use of a modern monitoring system, the city was able to reduce this in some areas to about 10 to 15 minutes.

He added, however, that the flood-mitigation efforts in the city seemed futile because of heavy flooding on national roads like President Osmeña Highway, Gil Puyat Avenue, Edsa-Magallanes and the Edsa-Chino Roces Extension.

With report by Maricar B. Brizuela