THE Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council asked the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) 7 to help the City Government formulate a risk allocation matrix following the discovery of around 770 sinkholes in the city.
Councilor Margarita Osmeña, head of the City Council committee on disaster risk reduction and management, said the matrix will contain the recommendations of an independent technical team that will review the findings of MGB.
The technical team is composed of experts from the University of the Philippines and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
She said that once the matrix is finished, geologists, together with the barangay officials, will then educate residents on contingency plans in times of disaster.
“They will go back to the barangays and talk to them in the language that is understood because they also have to have some accountability. We don’t want to instill that feeling of helplessness,” Osmeña said.
“There’s something you can do. You can live with that. You can live with the fact that there are sinkholes, but also if there are emergencies, we have to be prepared and that was made clear to us by MGB,” she added.
The councilor said it is crucial that the village officials themselves are able to identify the resources that are available and those that are lacking in the community.
But before that, Osmeña said there is a need to acknowledge that the sinkholes or depressions may have been manmade. They also have to be aware of the risks and the possibility that it can cause a disaster in the future.
Nagiel Bañacia, City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office head, said the study will focus on public buildings, since the government has no jurisdiction over private properties.
He said he has asked the technical team to prioritize public buildings such as schools, gymnasiums, and hospitals for study.
“These places serve as evacuation centers during disasters, so we must ensure that these places are also safe. These are what we use as lifeline centers so we have to make a timeline,” Bañacia said.
Aside from reviewing MGB’s findings, Bañacia said the technical team will also conduct a separate study on fault lines in the city in the next two weeks. (RTF)