CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines — The recent heavy rains in Cebu City which resulted into waist-deep floods here, displacing families and severe inconvenience to the public has prompted the city government to earmark over half a billion pesos for the construction of flood prevention projects.

Mayor Michael Rama announced that he has earmarked P700 million in the 2012 budget to be used for various flood prevention projects and operations in an effort to finally put an end to the perennial flooding problem of flooding around the city.

“The city’s flooding problem is no longer a joke,” Rama stressed.

He said that the city will need the services of “frogmen,” that is, scuba diver, to inspect the status of sea entrance channels of the different creeks in the city. Rama believes that heavy siltation may have prevented the flow of floodwater into the sea.

The mayor tasked Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias to help facilitate the hiring of scuba divers and to supervise their work.

He said he also plans to invite to a meeting representatives from the Civil Engineering Association, Cebu Contractors Group, Department of Public Works and Highways, the city government’s Engineering and Public Works department, deans of local engineering colleges and makers of the city’s drainage master plan to see what can be done about the flooding problem.

The knee-to-waist-deep floods experienced in the city during heavy downpour is really a matter of concern for city officials, said Rama who pointed out that the heavy rains which fell over Cebu, in fact, stranded city commuters because of the floods.

Earlier, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Region 7 (DENR 7) has identified Cebu as having the most number of barangays that are susceptible to landslides and flooding based on the geohazard mapping conducted by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).