Small coincidence or not, the scheduled filing of the P4.5-billion class suit by the families of the landslide victims in Barangay Tinaan, Naga City, coincides with the fifth anniversary of Super Typhoon Yolanda’s devastation of Cebu and Central Visayas also tomorrow.
To be sure, there are some differences — the day before Yolanda hit Cebu and parts of the Visayas, local governments and their constituents in Cebu province had ample time to listen and prepare for the worst.
And the landslide that broke out and devastated Sitios Tagaytay and Sindulan in Barangay Tinaan occurred days after heavy rainfall caused by Typhoon Ompong caused the soil fissures to crack wide open and rain boulders and sand on more than 20 residents in the areas.
Yet these comparisons don’t diminish and in fact highlight anew the responsibility of local governments to always take the best course of action for their constituents which is to relocate them out of harm’s way.
To risk not relocating the affected settlers even if only temporary on the LGU’s part is far greater than losing millions of pesos in funds just to ensure their safety.
In their class suit, the families demanded for an environment protection order against all quarry operations in Cebu along with a petition for a temporary protection order writ of continuing mandamus to determine Cebu’s carrying capacity as well as the rehabilitation and restoration of damaged ecological communities.
Based on experience, those protection orders stand a better chance of being acted on by the court than the financial payments sought by the families which will certainly be tied up in court deliberations for years to come — just ask the families of countless victims of maritime tragedies.
The protection orders will serve to remind not only the mining and quarrying firms whose unregulated operations have significantly damaged the environment but the local governments — in this case the City of Naga — and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) not to slack off and act on their mandate to protect their constituents who stand more to lose than the government when forced to evacuate even if it’s for their safety.
Tomorrow’s filing of the class suit is but the start of what the families know will be a long, arduous journey to seek justice for their loved ones.
It is a personal and trying journey that may soon be overlooked by the public in the midst of other developments like the elections, but one that should not be forgotten if only to spare other families from suffering the same tragic fate that they had.
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