DAVAO CITY, Philippines – “Floodbath” became a buzz word on social in the past weeks after heavy rains inundated most parts of Davao City.
The word pokes fun on Vice President Sara Duterte’s recent statement where she said she is looking forward to “bloodbath” on her Senate impeachment trial, where instead, her city was hit by flood.
A flood hit the northern part of Davao City on May 20 when Licanan River flooded Barangays Bunawan, Lasang, and Tibungco, which stranded motorists coming from Davao del Norte.
A netizen posted an aerial photo of the highway along that section, with a comment “Floodbath is real”, which garnered 1,500 shares.
Blogger JB Victa shared the photo and made a comment about where the city’s flooding project went.
“Floodbath is real in Davao. 50B (billion) Floodbath control anyare (what happened)?” Victa asked to first district Representative Paolo Duterte’s huge budget in his first term from 2020 to 2022 which reportedly went to infrastructure and drainage projects.
But the budget that the blogger referenced was intended for the city’s first district in Poblacion areas whereas the flood was in the city’s second district.
A video of people wading through a foot-deep raging flood in the Tibungco public market went viral which prompted a netizen to ask if this is a “floodbath”?
Five days later on May 25, heavy rains brought by the intertropical convergence zone flooded downtown Davao City, including Roxas Street where the night market was located, and portions of JP Laurel Avenue (Bajada) along commercial establishments such as NCCC Victoria. Other streets in the downtown area, such as Bonifacio Street and Magsaysay Avenue (Uyanguren) were also flooded.
Tibungco market was also flooded.
Floodwaters in downtown receded in a couple of hours, but not in areas such as in Tibungco.
Again, some netizens put out the word floodbath, in which one of them asked that Vice President Duterte should address the situation.
On a serious note, development worker Victoria ‘Mags’ Maglana, who recently ran for first district Congress two weeks ago, noted on her social media account how Dabawenyos should reflect on what is happening to the city.
“Ayon sa folk wisdom, you don’t get flooded only once dahil ang ang isang lugar na nabahaan ay maaaring mabahaan muli (because an area can still be hit by floods again).
Daghang lugar sa Davao na hindi nakakaranas ng baha in recent memory ay binaha kagabi (Places that were not hit by floods in recent memory were flooded). I could be mistaken but Bolton-Rizal comes to mind as an example,” Maglana said.
She said jokes aside on the situation in Davao, people should take a look into the city’s development projects.
“The safety, economic growth, and quality of life is affected,” Maglana said in Bisaya.
“Ang panglantaw nga “baha ka lang, taga-Davao mi” tinuod nga siaw ug makapakatawa taliwala sa kalisod. Apan kung gabalik-balik na, (The idea that ‘This is just a flood, we’re Davao’ may takes light of this difficulty. But if we keep repeating it) it only normalizes poor development and weak governance,” she pointed out.
“Usahay ang atong attention span sa hisgutanang baha, parehas ra sab sa gindugayon sa baha. Grabe ang atong reklamo samtang nagasaka pa ang tubig. Pero mokalma ra sab ta ug mabalhin ang atong atensyon sa ubang mga butang kung mohubas na. (Sometimes our attention on this flood problem comes and go like the flood. We complain a lot when it rises, but we calm down and train our attention elsewhere when it subsides),” she added.
The city’s flooding problem continues to hound residents in the past two decades, as climate change worsened floods after heavy rains. With rains pouring throughout the year, rainwater coming from neighboring provinces contribute to the swelling of rivers in Davao that displaces communities.
Flooding in urban city has been more frequent, inconveniencing commuters, motorists, workers and students. (davaotoday.com)
davao city, duterte, flood
