Act of forgetting

Former City of Naga mayor Valdemar Chiong recently admitted that Apo Land and Quarry Corp. (ALQC) already recommended the demolition of the houses in Sitio Sindulan, Barangay Tina-an in 2009, or almost a decade before the massive landslide hit the said village and adjacent areas on Sept. 20 this year. That was before he was replaced as city mayor by his daughter Kristine Vanessa.

“During that time, the residents approached me for help. They didn’t want their houses to be demolished. So I asked Apo to reconsider on their behalf,” he told radio dySS recently. While some sectors consider the admission as courageous, it would be interesting to find out how that would factor in the investigation being conducted on the incident.

The admission showed how politics and neglect, together with the weaknesses in the government setup, conspired to make the landslide one of the biggest tragedies to happen in Cebu in years. The threat was recognized as early as nine years before but remained unacted, then obviously was forgotten even as the political leadership changed hands.

The former mayor wasn’t the first politician to minimize threats because of politics. The loss of political will is not limited to City of Naga politicians. In Cebu City, for example, informal settlers and business establishments are able to build structures that have choked waterways causing floods. A succession of mayors never gathered the political will to clear waterways of these obstructions.

But this is not only about politics but is also about the leaders’ failure to find urgency in dealing with threats to people’s lives. Flooding, for example, is considered by leaders as a minor irritant if it doesn’t involve the loss of lives. It can be forgotten because, as we would say, “magbaha ra ba bitaw nag mag-uwan.”

In the case of Sitio Sindulan, the loss of urgency was gradual—every year that the feared landslide failed to happen, so towwo the act of forgetting intensified. Without the former mayor’s reminder, would we have known that almost a decade had passed since the threat to the live of the villagers was recognized?