Typhoon-free Mindanao must now prepare – govt execs

Images of helplessness frustrate leaders

DAVAO CITY – Residents of this city and the rest of Mindanao must also prepare for unexpected and bigger disasters and must discard reliance on being free from typhoons, the mayor here said, as traditionally typhoon-free Mindanao watched transfixed in television monitors the widespread flashflood in the National Capital Region.

North Cotabato Vice Governor Emmanuel Piñol agreed with Duterte, as he also called for a “serious review” of the government’s reforestation program.

“It’s very frustrating to see people dragged by floodwater and under the bridge and nobody can help. It’s bothersome to hear people pleading for help and they can not be rescued,” Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said, during his regular Sunday (September 27) television program, Gikan sa Masa Para sa Masa.

He said he would acquire new and more rescue equipment this year, including more rubber boats for the city’s Emergency Response Unit 911, one of only three emergency hotlines in the world equipped with life-saving and disaster response equipment in each response vehicle and ambulance. “There’s always a lesson to learn from all events unfolding before our eyes.”

“We should stop being contented with being typhoon-free; those of you who are always saying that we have projects that have not been bothered with typhoons, should prepare. All of us in Davao City,” he said.

“Historically, we only experience drizzle in the afternoons but we are now experiencing floods in only a matter of two to three days overcast. Recent floods in our areas are not a matter of drainage canals anymore,” Duterte said. “Flood waters has been hitting anywhere in the world.”

He has cancelled all planned celebration next week of the anniversary of the city government program Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa saying “this is a time to be sober”.

The Office of Civil Defense in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has reported flooding of several barangays in Sultan Kudarat but a personnel answering query from BusinessMirror said there were no details yet. “Our personnel are all there checking on the extent of damage,” he said.

There were no reported casualties though, but he said that the OCD has been concerned about the heavy downpour September 27, after only a lull a day earlier. It has been raining mos of last week.

The OCD in the Soccsksargen area, or Region 12, said that local disaster personnel were also monitoring the flood waters in low-lying barangays in Cotabato City.

Both reports of flood in the two regions were triggered by the side effect of Typhoon Ondoy.

The OCD in the Davao Region has not reported any incident although it has placed the region under close monitoring due to heavy overcast the last few days.

Governor Arturo Uy of the landslide-prone Compostela Valley province has disclosed earlier that leaders of municipal governments and local mining associations have already agreed to immediately implement evacuations in instances of successive heavy downpour in the inhabited slopes.

Vice Governor Piñol said “this is again another time to call for a serious review of the government reforestation projects and environmental protection”.

“I agree [with Duterte] that we should not say that we are typhoon-free because at the rate that we are still cutting our trees and at the rate that we are failing in our reforestation program, we would come to that point,” he said.

“Yes, we have reforestation program, but we only plant and then leave them,” he said. “AT least we have no problem about disasters in our province because we still have a thick forest cover.”

Duterte said that “we have come to a point that the irreparable damage that we have done to the environment would be visiting us every now and then, and even to the next several generations. We have destroyed the environment, and at least experts would say that we need 50 years to repair it.”

“The problem is, we are here to stay, and we cannot repair the damage inflicted. We can not boast anymore that we are shielded from the typhoons. There is an aberration in the world already,” Duterte said.

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