NEW BATAAN, Compostela Valley (MindaNews/29 January) – Tagum City is making use of the rocks that now cover what used to be the center of Barangay Andap in this town for its flood control works.
Workers at Barangay Andap in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, whose village center was flattened by rampaging water and boulders from the mountain during Typhoon Pablo gather rocks to be used in the town’s anti-flood measures on 28 Jan 2013. MindaNews photo by Bobby Timonera
As of Monday, workers from the Tagum City Engineer’s Office (CEO) were still hauling the rocks, which they said would be used to cover the flooded portions of the Libuganon and Busaon roads leading to Barangay Mamacao.
Tagum is 100 kilometers away from Andap proper.
Floodwaters from Mayo River that spilled into Andap carried along its path rocks and boulders that covered the village on December 4 last year, the day typhoon Pablo made a landfall in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.
Ed Arreza, regional director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau 11, said the rocks in Andap are ideal materials for road repairs.
“These roads have been flooded due to continuous rain last week,” Engr. Rodolfo C. Lanciola, Jr., officer in charge of Tagum’s CEO construction and maintenance division said in a phone interview.
The dump trucks used in transporting the rocks were the same ones used in delivering donated books and armchairs for elementary schools in Compostela Valley, Lanciola said.
“Our mayor does not want anything to go to waste,” he said, adding that they would rather fill the empty trucks with rocks instead of driving them back to Tagum empty.
Two dump trucks which delivered Tuesday donated books to Nabunturan Elementary School, went to Andap to haul more rocks before returning to Tagum, Lanciola said.
Another truck that delivered 492 new pieces of school furniture for the 530 students of Andap National High School also hauled rocks upon its return to Tagum, he said.
Tagum has so far donated a total of 22,688 chairs to Compostela Valley under the Care for School Chairs Program from August 2011 to December 2012, Edwin Lasquite, city information officer said.
Lanciola said the CEO had assisted in the clearing and retrieval of bodies, aside from having sent chainsaw operators and heavy equipment to New Bataan since December.
Pablo affected 11,327 families or 45,308 persons in 16 villages in New Bataan, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
For the whole province, the figure is 130,038 families or 520,152 persons in 234 villages. (Lorie Ann Cascaro/MindaNews)
