DAVAO CITY — Two mayors from Davao Oriental sought the help of Secretary Leo Magno of the Presidential Assistant for Mindanao for the repairs of their infrastructure projects ravaged by the series of calamities in their province.
Davao Oriental in the Southern Island of Mindanao was severely affected by the recent calamities such as typhoons, and earthquakes, and the worst was the shearline and trough which devastated many infrastructures and cut off many towns where bridges were cut off by the massive volume of flood water.
Due to limited share from the government Internal Revenue Allotment and low local income, the damaged infrastructures have yet to be rehabilitated nor repaired.
To respond to the needs of the people, the provincial government declared the province under a state of calamity to utilize the calamity fund but the bulk of the budget was spent for food and relief operations.
“We have yet to make repairs and rehabilitate our road networks, and several towns have yet to secure financial assistance from the national government, This condition prompted us to seek the assistance of Secretary Magno for the speedy rehabilitation and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure projects, ” said Cateel Mayor Emilou Nuñez told Newsline
As officer of the Mayors League in Davao Oriental, Nuñez said “We request on behalf of the mayor affected because we need to address the growing concerns of our people especially the major infrastructures damaged from the series of earthquakes and the shear line to the recent trough which destroyed our road networks and displaced our people,”
The town of Cateel has sixteen (16) barangays), eleven (11) of which are close to the Cateel River which for the first time since time immemorial was flooded in January and displaced hundreds of residents and thousands of livelihoods damaged.
Caraga town Mayor Ronnie Osnan whose town was severely damaged said We badly need intervention. My constituents in Barangay Pichon need to ride a motorboat to reach the town center and it is costly.”
The Lamiawan bridge which was the only link from Pichon to the town was swept by flood waters in December, the village is the boundary of Davao Oriental and Davao de Oro, and it is located in the hinterland, it is the community of Mandaya tribe who are dependent to farming for their survival,
The towns of Cateel and Caraga are just among the many towns of the province which was severely hit by a series of natural disasters.
In response, Magno while waiting for the response of the President, the town executives needed to revisit their land use plan and consider the natural hazards besetting their town in preparing for the projects they wanted to get funded.
“The crucial issue here is disaster prevention and mitigation, they must revisit their land use plan, review their zoning ordinances, and above all, conduct a risk assessment,” Magno said.
“We need to improve our response system but first we must work on disaster prevention in our communities,” Magno told the Mayors.
The Secretary assured the town executives that he would bring the matter to the attention of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as soon as he got the letter from the League of Municipal Mayors in Davao Oriental.
