News reports of families returning to rebuild their homes on a hilly area in Sitio Lower Ponce, Barangay Capitol Site in Cebu City despite last Thursday’s landslide caused by a heavy downpour that destroyed their homes underscored the perennial problem of where to relocate these settlers.
The fact that these families not only stayed in these hilly areas but built bigger homes, as evidenced by the two-storey house owned by the parents of one of the settlers named Jun Rey Oyao, showed an utter disregard not only to the warnings of city and barangay officials about the precariousness of their situation but an indifference towards protecting the environment.
One cannot blame Jun Rey for prioritizing the safety of his parents, whom he rescued after seeing the landslide. It was just too bad that their boarders, a family of five from Bohol province, lost a mother that rainy day.
Then again, they knew about how vulnerable their area was to landslides but chose to ignore it and took their chances that nothing would happen.
True, they didn’t have landslides for the past few years, but like the proverbial thief in the night, natural calamities often occur on their hapless victims when they least expect it.
The families are housed in the barangay hall, but upon learning that they will return to the hills to rebuild, what’s going to protect them from yet another more devastating landslide?
Last Thursday’s landslide completely ignored the presence of a riprap that was perhaps set up there to stop rocks, boulders and trees from falling on those who are downhill. And by that, we mean the motorists and passersby, not the settlers on the hills who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
In justifying their continued presence in the hills — and we extend this to settlers on the riverbanks who have no business in living there since their presence and the resulting garbage they dump in the area constrict the waterways that help divert the flash floods — the families will naturally expect the local government to pay for their relocation even if the funds come from taxpayers who already have enough dealing with the constant flooding due to clogged sewers and uncollected garbage lying everywhere in the streets.
Two administrations in Cebu City Hall had already passed, and they still failed to complete a comprehensive land use plan that was started in the ’90s that would have delineated which areas are suitable for settlement, which areas are for business and so on.
They also have yet to deal with commercial centers located near riverbanks whose garbage also constrict the waterways and contribute to the constant flooding.
We hope Metro Cebu local governments get a better handle in dealing with the problem of settlers who risk their safety just to have a roof over their heads without realizing that it would all come crashing down without warning.
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