DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental, Philippines (PNA) — Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria is lamenting the occurrence of excessive rainfall triggered by climate change, resulting in the city’s experiencing a serious problem with its drainage system which, he says, is not designed to accommodate huge amounts of rain.

Sagarbarria also told reporters in a recent interview that the city government does not have enough funds to improve or build a better drainage system to avoid a repeat of the massive flooding which inundated many parts of the city last June 30.

He said a major problem are the “too-small drainage canals in the city which can only contain a certain volume of water, and it would cost millions of pesos for the city to revamp its drainage system.”

A farmer, Sagarbarria said, pointed to the amount of rainfall that has, of late, been pouring on the Negros Oriental capital city, saying that several years ago, Dumaguete only recorded some six or seven inches of rain in a month’s time, spread out with at least five to six millimeters on a certain day.

In comparison, he said, “the city now would experience rainfall of two to three inches within an hour to two hours due to climate change.”

The city chief executive said that apart from regular de-clogging of the city’s canals, the local government does not have other options at the moment to effectively address the problem of flooding in the near future. Since last year, he said, at least 22 people were mobilized by the city government to regularly clear out the drainage canals in the city.

Last June 30, parts of Dumaguete came underwater following heavy rainfall that lasted for some two hours. Some areas saw water rising knee-high, even as some, including Vice Mayor Alan Gel Cordova, reported that water flooded their homes’ interiors.

A truck floated at the City Hall quadrangle, one person fell in a ditch along Silliman Avenue, a woman slipped and fell while negotiating through a flooded road along the north national highway, and the Ninoy Aquino Freedom Park in the city was literally turned into a “swimming pool.”