TACLOBAN CITY - The disaster that hit Brgy. Guinsaugon, St. Bernard, Southern Leyte has taught local government units to always give priority on disaster management plan to avert big loss during a calamity.
Adriano Fuego, regional chief of the Office of Civil Defense, yesterday said that with the disaster in Guinsaugon, local government leaders have become conscious of having a disaster management plan.
“That is the biggest lesson learned by our local government units...to always be prepared during a disaster by coming up with a well-laid disaster management plan,” Fuego, in a telephone interview, told Leyte Samar Daily Express.
Fuego cited in particular the municipality of San Francisco, also in Southern Leyte, for being “conscious” of having a disaster management plan. He said that with the incessant rain in the past weeks, the local government unit there asked residents in 15 villages to seek refuge in higher and safer grounds due to the possibility of a flashflood occurrence.
The OCD-8 chief also said that the Feb. 17 tragedy also helped “educate” the people to always be on alert whenever there is an impending calamity like a landslide or a flashflood.
“Relocating the victims is not really the answer or solution but information, education and massive campaign on how to avoid loss both in property and in life,” Fuego added.
Guinsaugon, a farming village in St. Bernard town, was buried by an avalanche of mud, boulders and debris coming from Mt. Kan-abag, which resulted to the death of over a thousand people.
Southern Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias placed the number of retrieved bodies at 152 with over 900 still missing and presumed dead. On Friday last week, the governor led in a memorial service for those who perished in the tragedy, with the buried village declared as a “sacred sanctuary.”
Fuego told Express that he learned that in the aftermath of the Guinsaugon tragedy, many local government leaders in the region, one of the natural disaster-prone areas in the country, have asked the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that they be provided with geo-hazard maps.
A geo-hazard map, Fuego said, could be a big help for local government units to identify areas in their respective localities where a landslide, tremor or flashflood may occur.
“These leaders not only want a mere geo-hazard map from the MGB but a more detailed and specific geo-hazard map wherein villages on their areas will also be identify as a potential risk areas,” he told Express.
For his part, Loreto Alburo, regional director of the MGB-8, said that they are now in the midst of things in so far as coming up with a more detailed geo-hazard map to be distributed to all local government units in the region.
He, however, said that with the magnitude of the tragedy, their office is giving focus on St. Bernard.
“There was also an order for us to provide a more detailed geo-hazard map for St. Bernard,” Alburo said, referring to the order coming from no less from President Macapagal-Arroyo who visited Guinsaugon.
Alburo said that their office is expected to come up with a detailed geo-hazard map for St. Bernard within four months’ time. The town itself, covering 29 villages, to exclude Guinsaugon, has been identified as a “high risk area.”
