ASK experts what causes a landslide: “over-steepening” of the base of the hill or mountain slope, caused by natural erosion or excavation, or “loading” of the said slope, making the mass heavier, because of water inflow or pile-up of dirt on the slope’s surface.
They say water is “almost always involved” in a landslide. The rains were blamed for the Tina-an, City of Naga (Cebu) disaster last Thursday (Sept. 20). But add to that the quarrying, all of which led to the collapse of more than two hectares in Sitio Tagaytay and the down-rush of rock, soil and debris, which covered the neighboring sitio Sindulan. Plus the failure of MGB and even the alleged lack of shortcoming of the Naga City Government, then ask, what God had to do with it?
He doesn’t send problems
There’s the extreme religious outlook and the restrictive legal viewpoint. In between is plain common sense.
Those who associate God every disaster, along with each good fortune, with God’s will, maybe to remind that we are at His bidding and mercy.
At least 46 dead, 59 missing and presumed dead, scores injured, homes buried, families dislocated: a heavy toll that some people want to charge to God’s account.
There’s of course the theory that God is not responsible for the tragedies in the world: the poverty, the serial or mass killings, the injustice, the disasters. Autonomy and free will, they point out. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his 1981 book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” says the “God I believe in does not send the problem. He gives us strength to cope with the problem.”
God didn’t cause the soil to loosen; the rains were part of nature’s course, which runs unbidden. The disaster was bound to come, this time sooner than later, accelerated by human excess and abuse.
More of a force majeure
That’s when the law comes in. Lawyers call it “fortuitous event,” an act of God or “force majeure,” an act of man.
The Naga calamity was more of a force majeure than an act of God. Foreseeable or not, was it inevitable? While forces of nature were at play, the tragic result could’ve been prevented:
--There should’ve been no quarrying by Apo Land and Quarry Corp.
--If there was quarrying (Apo insists there was none), the Mines & Geosciences Bureau should’ve watched and regulated Apo’s operation more tightly. It should’ve not allowed the mining to continue.
--If it couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the quarrying, it should’ve required the relocation of the people who were put at risk.
Continued stay of residents and mining couldn’t go together.
Drawing the line
That’s clarity, honed by the serial disasters that afflict the country, that still eludes those tasked with the duty to enforce environment laws.
Even after the tragedy struck, President Duterte, talking with families of the victims, cursed not the Catholics’ God but, inexplicably, the NPAs. A woman who asked that the mining activity be stopped sounded more on track than the country’s leader.
Inevitably, talk about villains included lawsuits, which should draw the line between act of God and act of man.
Supreme Court decisions have been clear: those accountable cannot shun liability by blaming God if the alleged divine act was mixed with human error or neglect. Human fault takes it out of the legal shelter that “act of God” provides.