TACLOBAN CITY – Possibly tired of parrying criticisms against him, Mayor Alfredo “Bejo” Romualdez has created a task force to address the worsening drainage problem in the city.
In an undated and unnumbered memorandum order released by the Kanhuraw Information and Media relations Office, the chief executive directed both the offices of the city general services and the city engineering’s to “select from your officers and men the necessary personnel to man this Task Force Drainage to do the work with the least possible delay.”
But Engr. Felix Ripalda and Eduardo Villamor from the CEO and Rudolph Mate and Alvin Lopez from the GSO were named by the city mayor to head their respective “contingent.”
“The Task Force Drainage” is hereby created with the personnel coming from both the City Engineer’s Office and the Department of City General Services together with their equipment and materials to be deployed in the different barangays all over the city where their services are needed,” Romualdez said on the memorandum order, a copy of which was furnished by KIMRO to Leyte Samar Daily Express.
The members of the task force were divided into two “and decided which part/portion of the same shall be (their) respective geographical portion for each to work.”
This way, Romualdez said, overlapping of territory and accountability of responsibility could easily be identified.
The continuous rains that have been experiencing by the city and the rest of the region have resulted to the flooding of different areas, prompting the residents to compliant on the “lack of action” from the city government.
The flooding in different parts of the city has resulted to “road slips” that estimated to have now reached more than P1.9 million.
But Mayor Romualdez had earlier told Express that the flooding in the city should not entirely be blamed on his administration arguing that he has done to address the problem.
He argued that the city’s main waterways and other areas that have experienced flooding were not within the jurisdiction of the city. These areas, Romualdez said, either belongs to the national or provincial governments.
Romualdez said that he already asked assistance fro the first sub-engineering district in Leyte to help him address the problem only to be informed that it has no funding to undertake any rehabilitation works.
Engr. Ripalda said that with the memorandum order issued by the city mayor, flooding incidents in the city could at least be “mitigated.”
“We can assure the public that we will immediately do our work...in addressing flooding incidents on their respective places,” Ripalda told Express.
Yesterday, Ripalda and the rest of the members of the newly created task force made their intial meeting at the CEO office.
“This only shows that the city mayor is listening to the clamor of the people to help them on their problem on drainage,” Ripalda said, alluding to allegations that the city mayor is callous on the appeal of the residents to address the drainage problem affecting the city.
Ripalda, however, said that while the city government is doing its share to help address the problem, the residents must also do their share.
“our waterways are clogged due to the garbage thrown by some of our people. We ask them to avoid doing this. This only aggravates our problem,” Ripalda said.
