Wet, wet, wet

IN her other, perfect world, six-year-old Gella Nacario sees herself living in a blue, five-storey house with a garden of tall trees.

In the Artex Compound of Barangay Panghulo where she lives, water has flooded her home — and those of 150 other families — for three years now. Gella remembers the time when she was still able to run around with friends and ride bikes on a concrete road now buried in five feet of black, murky water.

During heavy rains, the whole of Panghulo, one of the two lowest lying areas in Malabon, is submerged in deep water. In the entire Malabon, a city surrounded by rivers, flooding is hardly a seasonal occurrence. Poor urban planning, the proliferation of informal settlers, improper garbage disposal — among others — have worsened the city’s flooding woes.

This videocast, which accompanies the last in the series of i Report articles on local governance, looks into some of the reasons why flooding continues to be a problem in Malabon, and what authorities have done so far.

Meanwhile, Gella, in her wide-eyed innocence, sees the issue as something she and her dog, Gello, can solve.