The quarries and the build, build, build plan
It has already been a week since the landslide in Naga City that killed more than 64 people and left scores still missing, so it is only right for the volunteer workers to focus more on recovery than rescue. Seven days since the massive landslides last week, it would now be difficult to detect signs of life, as mentioned by Baltazar Tribunalo Jr., ground commander and head of the Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office.
Naga Mayor Kristine Chiong agreed with the recommendation to shift the operational status from “Search, Rescue and Retrieval” to “Search, Recovery and Retrieval.” In recommending the shift, authorities considered health and safety concerns, especially now that cadavers have been emitting foul smell. Yesterday, it was officially reported that 64 are now recorded dead, based on data from the Emergency Operation Center in the Naga City Hall. As of today, 26 individuals are still unaccounted for.
The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas will send additional medico-legal teams to assist in the identification of fatalities.
Lately, I heard that the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office will check two main areas as it inspects 35 small-scale quarry sites in Cebu Province as to whether or not their operations comply with environmental laws. Apparently the total ban on quarrying imposed by DENR after landslides would also apply to the quarrying of sand and gravel which are sourced from mostly riverbeds. The ban also covers existing inventory and this means that henceforth there will be no more delivery of cement to infrastructure projects.
There goes the Duterte administration’s “Build, build, build” program. This why netizens say that this government is so dysfunctional. The right hand negates what the left hand is doing. This is why DENR’s Roy Cimatu must set forth a time where quarrying will be looked into and they must look at the sand and gravel quarrying whether or not it affects the government’s “Build, build, build” program. This is why the DENR must look at this issue seriously and they must act accordingly.
We gathered that seven of the affected small-scale quarry companies are in Naga City. There are two companies in Minglanilla, two in San Fernando, two in Argao, one in Dalaguete, three in Alcantara, four in Consolacion, two in Compostela, two in Danao City, two in Carmen, one in Tabogon, two in Medellin, two in Pinamungajan, and one in Asturias. The question is; are these quarries potentially troublesome for the people living nearby? This is something that we must investigate and decide on as soon as possible.
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I read an article where a young generation historian said it’s time to review existing materials on martial law and the regime of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. This was historian Jonathan Balsamo of the Philippine Historical Association who said that the martial law era is being portrayed positively in some history lessons.
Frankly speaking, I saw on TV former defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile in a talk with former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, but honestly, I switched to another channel simply because martial law happened 46 years ago and I felt that history has already been said and written about that era in Philippine politics. Add the reality that the EDSA Revolution already happened 31 years ago, so talking about history and adding new items to this is in my book changing history to suit someone’s beliefs.
We are in the era where fake news is often given more importance than the real news and I would rather leave history as it was already written 30 years ago, rather than adding new materials which cannot be trusted for its credulity. For sure, there were things that the opposition said that were proven to be totally wrong. It’s called fake news today.
I’m referring to the corruption of the Marcos dictatorship of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). A few months after the EDSA Revolution, an ad hoc committee tasked to look into the corruption of the US company who gave us the BNPP was proven to be totally false. In truth, the Westinghouse deal wasn’t corrupt as sold by the opposition. But then it was too late for BNPP because of the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear powered plant in Russia, which made the BNPP not acceptable to the Filipino people.