ILOILO, MY RIVER, MY SHAME

Mayor Mabilog's Sinadya sa Suba should have been coupled with honest to goodness effort to really clean the arm of the sea or what is popularly called the Iloilo River. Before we went live on TV last Saturday, July 2, 2011, we had time to view the river from our seat and was deeply disturbed with what we saw: tons of garbage floating! The tide was apparently flowing in and the debris were floating back from parts of La Paz towards Molo.

So where is the much ballyhooed river clean-up which was the main object of that event, Sinadya? Did all the activities stop when the celebrations ended? What should have been done?

We met Capt. Nilo Sazon, the living hero of Iloilo River several months ago and before the Sinadya event. Long before there was publicity on the river clean up, Capt. Sazon and his team of navy auxiliary or volunteers were already deep into the cleaning up effort. He said that his team must have already removed more than 200 metric tons of dirt. He has an arrangement with Don Pepe Layson for him to dump the garbage on a road side while the garbage trucks of Don Pepe will take care of bringing them to the Calajunan Dump Site.

Capt. Sazon had the least publicity for his group's efforts. He gets to be invited from time to time in the forums talking about saving this arm of the sea and probably he would be bored too. After all, it seems that it's all talk and no action. That also holds true with this latest caper- the Sinadya, an Ilonggo term for festivities and nothing else. So while the river (if only it could talk) groans and aches, here are the people feasting, drinking, singing, making noises with cleaning up being the least of their worries.

So what gives? Where is the action after the bacchanalia? Or are they still drunk and just too lazy to get the first step? Will the say again that there's no money for clean up and there are no people to go house to house and establishment to establishment along the Iloilo river to check how they dispose of their garbage and ensure they don't end up in the river?

We are also amused at how this so called mayor responds to interviews. He invariably ends up with a laugh and utters some words which he thinks would make him cute, ha ha ha. We also heard him one time saying that he is the mayor and everybody criticizing him should wait for their time. I stayed in Davao City for nine years and during its worst time and every mayor of that famous city were not media hounds. In fact, they shunned radio and TV interviews. They just did what they were tasked to do- be a mayor and often that made them do some unpopular moves that created howls and grunts among their people led by the media. But did it deter them? No, they said they are just doing their job and they want to do it well.

Is Mabilog doing a good job cleaning up the river? Did his Sinadya make an impact and started things rolling? Not so if we were to look at it from Hotel del Rio. As an Ilonggo, I was particularly embarrassed by the comment of a black American who was sipping his coffee nearby. “My, my, this is such a dirty river. I thought I can relax here somehow, but I better retreat back to my room!” That is Iloilo, my city, my river, my shame!