The biggest mistake ever made by our public works contractors when making roads is the failure to dig deep on both sides of the intended roadway for an effective and workable drainage system that can accommodate severe rainfall in the next 20-25 years.
It has to be made clear that adequate entries for rainwater are placed throughout the roadspan and are alternated on both sides of the road. Hence, most of the roads built today have no storm drain systems at all.
And it is precisely because of this simple error why the majority of our roads get easily inundated even after a few minutes of continuous downpour as water stays stagnant and accumulates on top of the roads. Water level seeks its own level.
Why is this so? Massive corruption has removed from the public works these road planning projects. And now the floodwaters have once again shown its rage over several places in the country.
It’s Ondoy 2.0 if you ask me. Similarly, floodwaters are extremely everywhere in several hard-hit places. No high ground was assured of safety as water levels were rising rapidly and hurriedly as if to deliver a direct message to the populace.
And the irony of it all is again, there was no safe drinking water around.
For this reason, perhaps a Department of Water must now be created to address this yearly problem each time flood waters affect our communities. Government technical advisers would consider desalination as a solution to a serious drinking water shortage, especially in times of calamity.
The process, the removal of salt from sea water, is practiced routinely in many countries like Israel, which has turned many deserts into lush fruit and vegetable farms. Distillation is the most widely-used desalination process today.
A simple form of distillation apparatus is used in countries with salt water and intense sunlight like the Philippines. Salt water is placed under a transparent cover and the sun’s rays partially vaporize the water.
The water vapor is caught in the transparent cover and, when it condenses into liquid form, water flows into a collecting through. Other processes make use of the fact that when salt water is frozen, the ice crystals contain no salt.
There are already proposals for large-scale nuclear desalination projects which our government can make inquiries. But other more affordable desalination processes include freezing, reverse osmosis, ionic processes, electrodialysis and techniques that change the physical and chemical properties of salt water.
With the hundreds of millions of pesos used by the water agencies in the country, how come no government expert has been assigned to look into these desalination programs?
Preliminary inquiries could be made with embassies of countries which utilize successful desalination projects, and perhaps even our experts can be sent abroad to look for the most suited and economical apparatus which should be immediately purchased and used back here.
This is one expense that the people will surely embrace.
Biden should also give presidency to Harris
Now that President Joe Biden has quit the race for the presidency, I wonder if he would also step down from the White House throne and make way for Vice-President Kamala Harris to be president until elections?
This strategic move will surely reinforce a victory for Harris and would send the entire Republican Party spinning. Joe Biden can claim mental incapacity such as dementia and thus can no longer perform as president.
After all, he is already considered a lame duck president especially right after that assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Not that I don’t think that Kamala Harris is using the resources of President Biden, but the psychological impact it puts on those who would believe that Donald Trump never lost the presidency to Joe Biden. So he continues to behave like he’s still the president.
Harris has raised more than $200 million shortly within a span of 24 hours since Biden’s announcement. She will definitely be receiving more support from John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries.
We have yet to wait for the same from Barack Obama who would rather have his wife Michelle Obama as the Democratic frontrunner for the US presidency.
As a former prosecutor, Harris is familiar with the likes of Donald Trump, a convicted felon involving some $130,000 “hush money” payment his lawyer Michael Cohen gave adult film actress Stormy Daniels several days before elections, among several other convictions.
Sara’s unfavorable juncture
So Vice-President Sara Duterte left PH as typhoon Carina unleashed her angry rains to many parts of the country, thus affecting thousands of families.
Lucky for her, she can simply say she literally flew to dry ground because of her role as self-appointed designated survivor, perhaps fearing being drowned by the rising floodwaters.
But can you really blame such behavior from someone like her who really only cares for Davao and not for the entire Filipino nation?
From hereon, expect her to perform similar moves if only to show her arrogant and uncooperative behavior towards the Marcos administration.
For after all, she’s no longer a cabinet member and would definitely never be offered again a same level cabinet post.
-o0o-
Random Memorandum: The tasty Pigek fish (mesopristes cancellatus) is believed to be found only in Northern Mindanao. Also, in Lake Naujan, Lake Mainit, and the Kalinwan River. Its northern counterpart, the Ludong fish (cestraeus plicatilis valenciennes 1836) of Cagayan Province, can fetch a price of as much as P10,000 a kilo.
Both fishes are called the President’s Fish because of their rarity and high price and a known favorite of Filipino presidents.
-o0o-
Factoid: Like Tagalog, the Cebuano language was influenced heavily by the Spanish language during the colonial period. For example, a Latin-based writing system was introduced to the Cebuano language. Also, a significant number of Spanish loanwords were introduced to the Cebuano language during this time. Literally thousands of Spanish loanwords can be found in the Cebuano language today.
(Leslie Bocobo is a former Special Assistant to the Secretary at the Office of the Press Secretary, Malacañang, and a former Public Affairs Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources)
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