HELP continues to pour in for the victims of the landslide in Tina-an, Naga City, giving rise to a relatively pleasant problem: where do you store them? Former city mayor Val Chiong said they have run out of storage spaces because of the sheer volume of the donations. Responding to Val’s SOS, Gothong Southern Shipping promptly dispatched six empty twenty-footer container vans to Naga yesterday morning.
It is often said that the one good thing, if you can call it that, about a crisis is that it brings out the best in man. Immediately after news of the tragedy came out, various volunteer groups started arriving in the site of the landslide to help in the rescue operations. And even before the extent of the catastrophe was made known, private individuals had already descended upon the city with bags of used clothing and canned goods. Even President Duterte canceled some of his appointments in Cebu to visit Naga and show his solidarity with the victims.
But even while we extol the virtue of Christian charity of those who are helping the victims, we should not overlook the accountability of those responsible for destroying the lives of so many. Even granting that no one can prevent the soil from rumbling from the hills to lower ground, someone with experience and who is charged with monitoring such natural movements could have seen it before it actually happened.
The point is that the tragedy could have been avoided. Someone failed in his job and the victims had to pay with their lives. I read that an investigation is being conducted to determine if there was negligence and who was guilty of the same. I hope that we can find that out sooner than later and that we can learn our lessons from the sad Tina-an experience and avoid its repetition.
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The quarry operations in Tina-an are authorized by the national, not the provincial, government. The province is authorized to issue permits only for small-scale quarrying or mining. It is therefore wrong to blame the provincial administration for something that it did not do.
Gov. Hilario Davide III nevertheless suspended all quarry operations that he had authorized in the aftermath of the Tina-an landslide. He said that while he sympathized with the small businessmen who will suffer economic losses as a result of the suspension, he has a bigger duty to preserve the lives of his constituents.
The governor said that they are very strict in monitoring quarrying operations but they have to be doubly sure that these do not pose a threat to the lives of the people residing near the quarrying site. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has similarly imposed a ban on quarrying operations. Like the one ordered by Davide, the suspension is expected to be only temporary.
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When Cebu City Councilor Joey Daluz was suspended for his alleged failure to explain the increase in his net worth by a little over a million pesos, some people were incredulous. How could the Ombudsman investigator not have believed Joey’s claim that he inherited his new-found “wealth” from his mother?
But what’s this I hear that Joey failed to file his position paper that the Ombudsman required? If it is true, then it is wrong to blame the investigator for being “unfair.”