15
years after Pinatubo
Mayon Lahar Avalanche: A Repeat of Pinatubo
When will the
government learn from its negligence (mistakes)?
BY FRANK MANGULABNAN
UGNAYAN-Central Luzon
Posted by Bulatlat
We, the victims of
the eruptions and succeeding after-effects (the lahar avalanche) of Mt.
Pinatubo beginning 1991 – particularly we, the people, in the provinces of
Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales in Central Luzon – say that what happened on
Mt. Mayon is just a repeat of the negligence the government never learned
even after 15 years.
Firstly, we were never informed that there
is an "active" volcano nor even told that there is a volcano in our midst,
right in the tri-boundary. Secondly, during the volcano's initial minor
signs of restlessness in March in 1991, we were not told of the magnitude
if ever the volcano will erupt, hence the "false sense of security" among
the people, therefore, the lack of disaster preparedness.
And so during its major eruptions, there
were no evacuation plan, ready-to-use evacuation and resettlement centers.
This is the main reason for the big infrastructure and property damages,
public and private. And this is the main reason for the big number of
human casualties (death, wounded and missing).
And even after the eruptions, the false
sense of security among the people did not readily disappear because the
people were subsequently told that the government was doing or actually
had done it responsibility on engineering interventions in order to save
people and properties. Because we in the various people's organizations
were not so convinced that the government was doing its duties and
responsibilities, we were compelled to organize ourselves into an alliance
in order to protect our bodies, our remaining properties and or rights as
disaster victims. We organized the UGNAYAN or the Ugnayan ng Mamamayan
para sa Tunay na Resetelment at Rehabilitasyon where provincial chapters
in each of the three provinces were simultaneously also organized.
After the major eruptions, we fanned out
to different villages that, we saw, were still in danger of lahar
avalanche. We saw with our own eyes the millions of cubic meters of lahar
still suspended on mountain cliffs and gullies. With limited resources,
we conducted disaster preparedness trainings in cooperation with different
non-government organizations and civic organizations, taking into special
account the vulnerability of the people. In most of the cases we were
shooed away by government officials saying were are scaring the people and
branded "rumor mongers." A high provincial government official repeatedly
said, "You can sleep soundly now, never fear, you are now safe from lahar
flow, we have constructed the Gugu Dike." This statement was echoed by
lower-level local government officials.
It turned out that the much-boasted of
dike was only an earth dike made of porous lahar materials that was easily
swept away in only one lahar episode. This was what happened in the famous
Cabalantian Tragedy (a village in the town of Bacolor, Pampanga) where
thousands of people died in their sleep on Oct. 1, 1995.
And this is what happened in the lower
slopes and the villages surrounding the Mt. Mayon – clear government
negligence, in a government that is preoccupied in a never-ending survival
fight to save a pretender, where government resources are being siphoned
off to buy out congressmen and local government officials and buy votes.
Posted by Bulatlat
Frank Mangulabnan
is chairman of UGNAYAN-Central Luzon
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