Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Editorial: A little push, a little persistence
THE local government unit of Maco in Compostela Valley is said to be determined to close down the settlement area in Masara, the old mining town of North Davao Mining Corporation, because of the recent landslide that buried residents alive, killing at least 16, injuring 19, and rendering missing 14 more.
It's not the first time that the Maco LGU has deemed it necessary to close down the village. The same decision was made last year in a hauntingly similar situation when a landslide killed 11 residents in August 2007.
Maco Mayor Voltaire Rimando said even after they declared it a no man's land last year, residents refused to leave. But he vowed that they will now make it a point to prevent residents from returning.
We just hope so, in the same way that we hope Mayor Rimando realizes that the issue at hand is not just about environmental degradation and the residents' hardheadedness. Rather it's all about economics.
Since the NDMC closed down sometime in the 1980s, the village of Masara has become a settlement area of those seeking desperately for a living: their main source of livelihood, gold panning and other small-scale mining activities.
It's not enough to say that the residents will be relocated, because for as long as there is no source of livelihood for those who will be shuttled out, then they will return and return.
Thus, the search for a relocation site for the residents is but a minor step. The most important and crucial step is introducing an alternative livelihood that will sustain the families, who have for so long lived on the bits and pieces of gold that both the adults and children of Masara have panned. And seeing the semi-concrete houses that were buried, we can say, it wasn't a really bad source of livelihood at that.
Bu we only have to know how Masara looks like to fully appreciate what these people have to live with, just to sustain a life.
The main settlement area of Masara sees no sunrises, nor sunsets. Just high noon.
It's landlocked and surrounded by steep mountains on all sides, the sheer height of the mountains towering where you stand along Gold Avenue, its main dirt road, should be enough to make you have second thoughts about settling and raising a family there. But for people who have found livelihood, even the dizzying heights of the surrounding mountains will be worth the risk.
By declaring Masara as a no man's land, does the LGU of Maco has something to offer the residents that will be worth the risk of uprooting themselves from the livelihood that has sustained them these past years? If the answer is no, then even the threat of yearly landslides will not stop these residents from coming back. They may become more prayerful, but they will be back.
