Digging up the city

The Davao City Council approved 30 quarry operation requests during a session on Wednesday. This is on top of the 63 active quarry operations in the city.

This did not sit well with Davao City Councilor Maria Belen Acosta, who is the chair on the committee on peace and order, claiming that the decision was too hasty and the council should have waited for a study and an assessment from the City Environment and National Resources Office (Cenro). She was the only one who voted no to the approval of the requests.

It is quite puzzling why members of the city council somehow rushed the approval of the requests without considering the environmental impacts of such actions. While Davao City is environmentally healthy as compared to other major cities in the Philippines, it is still on the verge of being an environmental disaster considering how fast it is growing.

The reason of councilor Diosdado Angelo Mahipus, committee on environment and natural resources chair, for pushing for the approval of these items, which is under his committee, was the items queued have long been overdue and those who requested this already complied with all the needed requirements.

With their power, they could have asked a third party and Cenro to do a study on the impacts of active quarry operations in Davao City and on the people living nearby. Davao City is a huge city in terms of land area but there still has to be a limit on quarry operations.

While we could not find a research on quarry operations and its impact to the environment in the Philippine context, it can be said that quarry operations can trigger landslides if done haphazardly.

The safety of the people living near quarry sites and the environment should not be sacrificed.

It may be too late but the council could also tap research institutions to conduct a study on the quarry operations in the city. Through a proper research, we will be able to determine if it is still safe to conduct quarry operations in the city or if it is time to limit them strictly.

Let us not wait for a disaster to happen when something can be done as early as now.