Jun Ledesma
Mother nature unleashed its vengeance against man’s abuse of its resources. Sadly though the victims are often the poor, the fortune seekers and the exploited.
We have seen how many lives were lost in Barangay Masara, Davao de Oro as tons of cascading mud caught them in their homes. Others, mostly workers of Apex Mining, who happened to be in the bus terminal and just waited awhile to be ferried home. They were buried in the boulders and mud. Only a few survived to tell their story of the tragedy.
The aftermath of this tragedy revealed to us that there is more to the dead bodies recovered underneath the rubbles.
What we see is a horrible exhibit of magma of corruptions, unconscionable violations of environmental edicts, substandard infrastructure constructions and failure and inability of inefficient local government officials to address emergencies but quick to pass on the blame to their political adversaries.
Let us look at the scene of the tragedy in Barangay Masara. In 2008 following a mudslide where 24 people were buried alive that included the barangay captain, Masara was declared a NO-BUILD-ZONE. The Governor then was Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy who, in his retirement is simply called “Papa Gob”. Immediately after the declaration, it was still fresh to us that the provincial government evacuated more than 200 settlers from the area to a safer ground. First in school buildings, then later in bunk houses and finally in their permanent homes away from Masara.
Those successions of developments stuck in the mind of many journalists because then Governor Chiongkee Uy sought the assistance of Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga to help them tackle the need for permanent residential houses of the victims.
Governor Uy and Meloto organized a “Partners’ Forum” and proceeded to undertake a Herculean task of relocating, temporarily housing and then building permanent residential houses for the evacuees. All the tasks done in the spirit of “volunteerism”. All materials were from donations coming from friends of Papa Gov and concerned citizens who we cannot name here as they requested to remain incognito. Those who came to help in the construction of the permanent homes were from various sectors. To the best of my recollections the volunteers include lawyers, teachers, students, religious sectors and even media men. In the words of the former governor, everybody came to help build the homes of the evacuees except the NPAs.
In less than two months, the evacuees were resettled.
The recent tragedy moreover unearthed anomalies and irregularities in epic proportions. In the NO-BUILD -ZONE in Masara it was obvious that new settlers were allowed to build houses anew as a barangay hall was even constructed in the area. The incumbent provincial authorities were quick to put the blame on the past administration, meaning the Governor Chiongkee Uy who negated the accusation saying that those who were resettled during his time never returned to Masara and that he has no hand whatsoever in the building of a barangay hall adjacent to the scene of the killer mudslide.
Papa Gov asserted that it was not he who constructed the barangay hall in Masara. He said the construction of the hall served as a green light for new settlers to also build their houses in the area.
The former governor later revealed that there were two more barangay halls which were actually erected in areas declared by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau under the Department of Natural Resources as No-Build-Zones. He identified the places as barangay Bukal and Panoraon. Each of the barangay building costs ₱7-million.
If construction of barangay halls in no-build-zones is highly anomalous nothing beats what mother nature revealed as substandard stretch of road infrastructure between Nabunturan and Mawab. The entire segment collapsed like domino blocks and was rendered impassable. A quick look at the damaged highway, portions of which are colored red, blue and yellow, the cement blocks appeared to be less than 10 inches in thickness. Each block has only one steel rod where there ought to be sufficient steel rod re-enforcement.
The sub-standard highway construction and the building of barangay halls in No-Build-Zones in Davao de Oro should be subjected to congressional investigation. The congressmen who came to inspect the mudslide in Masara and proposed to subject this to formal inquiry must act on it promptly. Otherwise this is another case of political dramatics. If so they themselves will be held accountable for inaction. We say this for as of this writing there is no perceptible move a probe is underway. (Jun Ledesma)