Miriam, environmentalists slam government over Leyte landslide

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago scored yesterday the apparent lack of a coordinated government effort to prevent the landslide tragedy in a farming village in Southern Leyte, where thousands remain unaccounted four days into the rescue and recovery mission.

"It is readily apparent that there has been a failure of coordination between concerned government agencies when it came to the preparation for and mitigation of the effects of the landslides in the area," she said.

Santiago also urged her colleagues to conduct an inquiry into the causes of deforestation in Southern Leyte attributed to illegal logging and the devastating effects of the kaingin (slash and burn) system of clearing farmlands.

Environmentalists joined the lawmaker in blaming the government, particularly the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), for its failure to institute mitigating measures and preparedness despite the identification of landslide-prone areas in the country since 2004 and forecast of the La Niña weather phenomenon for 2006.

Malacañang, meanwhile, did not rule out the possibility that residents living around the disaster-stricken Barangay Guinsaugon in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte will be relocated.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita admitted, though, that relocation will not be an easy task.

"Even in Southern Leyte itself, in certain municipalities, you have to do a lot of convincing (to relocate them). It will be hard especially for the people who have long lived there, but they need to know of the dangers from living there so that what happened recently will be prevented," Ermita said.

Santiago noted an alarm had been raised in Southern Leyte before last Friday’s landslide tragedy.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) earlier disclosed that the province had been considered "vegetated" and among the country’s "priority geo-hazard areas," thus it should not have been inhabited in the first place.

Santiago pointed out safety and preventive measures should have been prepared long ago considering that deadly landslides had ravaged Southern Leyte repeatedly in previous years. Also, she noted heavy rains occur there four times the national average and rainfall had been continuous for the past two weeks.

Concerned agencies had also predicted that the eastern seaboard of the Philippines would be the hardest hit by the La Niña phenomenon, including Cagayan Valley, Isabela, Southern Leyte, Agusan del Sur and Norte, Davao Oriental, Samar, Aurora and the Bicol provinces, the lawmaker said.

"Now is the time to really sit down and seriously talk about the institutionalization of appropriate government programs to prepare for and mitigate the adverse effects of natural disasters in the country," Santiago said.

On orders of President Arroyo, Ermita has tasked the secretary of the DENR to compose an interagency super body to investigate the circumstances that led to the tragedy in Southern Leyte.

"We want to determine the causes and find out what measures that government must do," said Ermita, who was interviewed at the Senate yesterday to defend the budget of the Office of the President.

The task force include officials from the Department of National Defense, Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Department of Science and Technology.

In 2003, former DENR secretary Elizea Gozun prepared a geo-hazard map on Leyte.

"I would like them to check whether the DENR under then Secretary

Gozum indeed effected action on the geo-hazard map among other things," Ermita said.

He added the Palace is still awaiting the results of the investigation. The body was given a week to conduct its probe.

No training, no warning

The Kalikasan-People’s Network for Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) said the NDCC could have fallen short of its responsibility to take action on the Leyte landslide that could have been prompted by the issuance of the list of landslide-prone areas nationwide and the projected weather situation.

Clemente Bautista, coordinator of Kalikasan-PNE, claimed there had been no education and training given to residents on disaster preparedness and the possibility of landslides.

He likewise claimed that no local-based early warning system was ever set up nor was a disaster management and prevention plan developed.

"Worst, the people of Saint Bernard were not immediately evacuated even as the Arroyo administration had monitored several landslides in adjacent town of Sogod and has assessed that there would be more landslides in the surrounding towns," Bautista said.

"The government could have actually prevented, if not minimized, the death and destruction in the Saint Bernard mudslide," he said. — Christina Mendez, Katherine Adraneda