Totally Cebu

A rainy day in Banilad

I’ve always thought of rain as something to do with relaxation and loosening up some tension right from my busy thinking. But, in this particular rainy day, it wasn’t about relaxation and loosening up, it was merely about a strenuous and taxing activity that I, my girlfriend and our friend endured for the longest 15 minutes of our lives.

3:00 PM

It actually began with slow raindrops at 3:00 in the afternoon but later on shifted to a major downpour that caused the whole place of Banilad in disarray. And why is that? For years, this certain area of lower suburb is always flooded almost every downpour. I can still remember, back when I was studying in University of San Carlos–Technological Center, that my fellow students get stranded inside the campus because of what I consider as the time for the rare Banilad River to flow. Wow, that’s actually some name there.

4:15 PM

At this time, I was still at work doing my tasks when I suddenly figured out that I’m going to head home early in which I did 20 minutes later. I rode the jeepney and then just a couple of kilometers away from home, in what could’ve been the rarest traffic at noon suddenly halted the vehicles heading towards downtown. That was the longest 40 minutes of my life that I was thinking of walking if not with the heavy rain tapping the roof of the vehicle that I’m riding, heavily.

5:15 PM

We got past the school and there was indeed the Banilad River enticing avid and wannabe surfers to try out the silky waves for that perfect “shove it” surfing move. But honestly, it was kind of a satirical picture when I saw students waiting for not-so-full jeepneys so that they can get home already.

5:25 PM

I got home finally! Then I suddenly felt a cold sensation cruising past my feet… 3-4 inches of flood water is inside our apartment. “Great. What a perfect day.” Then sighed. Later on, the three of us were scooping out the water from the apartment. I’m not going to describe exactly how taxing the whole process is and how nasty smelling the flood water is, but it’s actually the day where I poured my one-week-worth of energy. And I can’t picture out the two people dipping the flood water out of the apartment since it’s not in their image. Actually, these two are the social-type people and they don’t exactly look like the ones I saw in Ayala Center when I saw what they did.

What caused it?

Let me describe it this way. The upper part of Banilad, which is going downtown, and the area around USC-TC, are uphill parts of the neighborhood. Now when it rains, the flowing water goes to the middle part of those areas then begins to flood the streets overflowing the gutter then towards the certain establishments around the area. And our apartment happens to be just around the corner waiting for the flood water to initiate contact and swamp the kitchen and bedroom. Darn! This is actually the first time the water came flooding in and I knew it is indeed the heaviest rain ever. May I suggest that the people behind the drainage system in the
Cebu metropolis better not just cast their spells but put their hands and minds unto it to effectively provide a better way in solving this recurring problem.

Anyway, after the whole scooping out process, we decided to call it a night and bought our dinner to eat in our bed. Wow… now that’s what I call dinner in bed. I guess the people around our area are so used to this situation and, I believe, our everyday activities and business will just go on just like another day.

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