Social inequality between urban centers and rural areas was highlighted once again by the freak accident that claimed the lives of three high school students in Argao town last Monday.
Earl Kylle Sardido, 13, Rochelle Anne Pasahe, 15 and Caroline Marzon, 15 were walking home from the Calagasan National High School around 4 p.m. when they were swept away by a flash flood.
On normal days, part of the dirt mountain trial has a stream of water running across it.
Heavy rains in the uplands triggered a rush of water that overwhelmed the children, who were pushed off the road and down a ravine to a river that empties into the Bohol Strait.
A flash flood can do that. Torrents of water travelling from a higher elevation to bodies of water like rivers, lakes and seas can be a scene of violence.
A few weeks ago, the drowning of several students on a field trip in Bulacan province was big news. The accident took place in a river.
In the Argao tragedy, however, the students were not on a field trip.
Teachers had dismissed classes in the afternoon, anticipating a heavy rain. The kids were doing their routine trek home, a distance of several kilometers that is covered again in the morning.
Children in the city, who take public transport or are fortunate to be driven by car to school, enjoy the trappings of modern life.
In the countryside, going to school is often a physical sacrifice.
Resources are concentrated in urban centers, leaving the outlying towns in a state of need
As the population goes farther from the center, public resources become scarce, and the impact of governmen diminishes.
Gov. Hilario Davide III, whose family’s roots are in Argao town, in the upland barangay of Colawin not far from Calagasan, knows this.
His father and uncles made the daily trek to school in slippers.
This time, however, the govenor, who grew up in the city, is in a position to do something about towns that have to fend for themselves.
We would hope that the tragedy of three Argao school children would give new impetus for the municipal and provincial government to help students get an education without exposing them to harsh conditions of nature.
There’s a plan to build a high school closer to the barangays, so that children don’t need to make a long trip on foot.
The path of runoff water in the mountain road is also a matter for engineers to design a drainage canal to divert the next downpour.