Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Cabaero: Sinsin experience By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
A GOOD thing happened in Cebu City last week at about the same time when parts of the world were coping with high death tolls from natural calamities.
While death tolls were rising in China from the earthquake and in Burma from the cyclone, an accident about to happen was prevented in Cebu City when local officials decided to move mountain barangay residents away from danger.
Barangay Sinsin is a mountain barangay in Cebu City. It has a small population of mostly farmers that if an accident like a landslide had happened, the number of fatalities would not be as dramatic as the figures coming out of China and Burma.
But in the work of saving lives in disaster situations, one person removed from danger is a life saved.
It was a wet week when rains fell in Cebu in what the weather bureau described as the early start of the wet season last week.
I was one of those who grew anxious one evening last week with the sound of waters rushing past our backyard because the sound usually evoked images of houses being washed away and women and children drowning. It wasn’t long ago when I saw a nipa hut floating past our backyard and heard about a grandmother swallowed by the swirling waters.
Landslides and flashfloods have become expected occurrences after heavy downpours in Cebu City that it has become easy to get mad at local officials.
I wondered when officials would learn to act fast and act right to save the lives of women and children, the elderly and the young, who are often the victims in natural calamities.
Some acts of nature cannot be predicted, like the earthquake that hit a part of China. There are occurrences, however, where one can prepare a course of action to prevent loss of lives. This is where government can come in.
The Cebu City Council did that when it invoked the general welfare clause of the Local Government Code and ordered the evacuation of some 70 families of Barangay Sinsin from landslide-prone areas. The Council was worried the heavy rains would loosen the soil and bury the residents. The general welfare clause gave the local government unit the power to take action to ensure the promotion of health and safety.
The action followed a recommendation of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau to transfer the Sitio Nangka residents because of the instability of the soil.
The evacuation was led by Cebu City action officer and Councilor Gerardo Carillo who sought the help of the police, the Philippine Marines and the barangay in bringing these residents to a safer place even if some of the residents were protesting.
What turned amusing in all the serious work on the evacuation was the seeming competition between political groupings on the care for the evacuees.
Opposition leader and sports patron Jonathan Guardo went to the evacuees last Saturday and handed out rice, noodles and canned goods placed inside a white pail to each family.
City Hall already gave each family five kilos of rice, canned goods and noodles. Carillo said the giving of relief goods will be every five days.
No matter if politics enters the picture, for as long as they both give assistance to people alive and not grieving the loss of a family member.
