City Gears for River, Coastal Clean-up

The 5,000 employees of the Cebu City government and hundreds of students from different public and private schools in the city are scheduled to assist the Coastal Management Board (CMB) in conducting a city-wide coastal and river clean up this coming Saturday.

CMB Executive Director Pedro Cuizon said aside from the City Hall employees and students, the barangay officials will also join the clean up that will be spearheaded personally by Mayor Michael Rama in order to prevent flooding and promote cleanliness throughout the city.

In yesterday’s press briefing at the City Hall, Cuizon said the coastal portion of the South Road Properties (SRP) are now full of garbage that were carried by the strong current of water from the rivers and creeks of the city during the recent heavy downpour that is why he want to concentrate in the clean-up in these areas before they will proceed to other places.

Cuizon expects that several tons of garbage will be gathered by the volunteers from the coastal areas and from the creeks and rivers in different barangays during the whole-day activity.

Rama had encouraged the occupants of each household to always clean up their surroundings and to refrain from throwing their garbage into the creek. The mayor said that everybody should unite in cleaning up their surroundings because by doing so it will also minimize health problems like the occurrence of dengue-related cases.

Cuizon had observed that there are still many people who did not change their bad behavior by just throwing their garbage in to the drainage systems without knowing that it can cause clogging of the waterways that will result of floods.

He added that the hundreds of students, particularly the city scholars who will be asked to participate in the city-wide clean-up, will be tasked to join the so-called Operations Koskos by removing the remaining campaign materials of the candidates during the last elections that are still in the walls and electric posts.

Because the CMB was only provided P250,000 budget for this year, it can no longer provide one sack of rice to each of the participating barangays as what the city did last year.

Cuizon said he will recommend bigger budget for CMB next year and suggested that the mayor’s earlier plan to purchase a barge for coastal clean up and for other purposes will be pursued and the amount for it will be included in the preparation of the next year’s annual budget.