GOVERNMENT’S task in the landslide-hit areas in the City of Naga does not end with the retrieval of the bodies, with the retrieved now breaching the 60 mark. Neither would it end with the distribution of assistance, financial and material, to the victims. The same can be said for Apo Land and Quarry Corp. (ALQC), which has promised P30,000 burial assistance for the families of the dead.
The landslide did not only cause the death of people or the destruction of properties. It destroyed communities and reshaped the places where these communities stood. Where villages once were are the soil and rocks that peeled off from the mountainside. The soil and rocks are white because the geography once covered them with green grasses, bushes and trees.
It will take time for the green to grow on the soil and rocks that now cover the villages of Tagaytay and Sindulan in Barangay Tina-an. It will also take time for communities to flourish once again in the area. Like a wound on the human body, everything there takes time to heal. And like a wound, the healing needs attention and intervention.
Those concerned must therefore focus on the healing after the painful phase of retrieval and final burial. That healing could start with the rebuilding of the houses and, eventually, the restoration of the dynamism in the new communities. That process cannot be left to the survivors’ sole discretion.
Government and the others concerned, like ALQC and the firms that flourished in the exploitation of the affected areas’ resource, must be there throughout the entire process of healing. They must not leave after the bodies are recovered and the assistance delivered.
The National Government has promised to build 320 housing units in the designated relocation site for the surviving families. But first the safety of the site has to be determined by concerned government agencies. On this the City Government of Naga must take the lead.
The local government unit of Naga and some national government agencies failed in ensuring the safety of the people in Barangay Tina-an and adjacent areas when the landslide struck. They must not fail them again in the rebuilding and healing process.