A veteran lawmaker is pushing for the creation of a council that would manage and conserve the rivers and banks in the city.
“We need to have a council that will manage, monitor, conserve and protect the rivers and riverbanks,” said Councilor Pilar Braga, the City Council committee chair on education, science and technology, arts and culture.
Driven by her love for the nature, Braga said the council should come up with rules and policies that would protect the city’s rivers and the riverbanks where trees stand.
She said that it is important to take care of the riverbanks to ensure that the rivers in the city are safe for the people.
“Our riverbanks are blessings when properly managed, but they can be very destructive if we mishandle them, just like the floods that we are experiencing (during) heavy rains,” she said.
Following the resurgence of the type 2 polio virus in the city, Braga also questioned how the virus took place in the main river of the city. She said that the virus may not come from the people residing near riverbanks since most of them have been living in the area for too long and no polio case have been detected.
“We should consider to look at the sewerage systems of the mushrooming new subdivisions from Tigatto to Mandug and beyond as well as those found on the opposite side of the river,” she said.
Resort owners would lose money due to the epidemic announcement of the City Health Office, she said.
“That’s why the rivers play an important role in our living. They are part of our living,” she said.
Braga is in tandem with the Committee on Environment in pushing the proposed ordinance.
She said they will also study on the matters concerning residents at the riverbanks.
“Riverbanks are dangerous areas. There has to be no houses near the riverbanks, supposedly,” she said.
Recently, Braga questioned before the City Council the cutting of trees at the Clifford Park, the city’s freedom park. Mayor Sara Duterte immediately issued a public apology for the oversight and vowed to plant more trees.
