NDCC okays relocation of over 800 'high-risk' Alimodian locals
Government assistance will now be focused on over 800 villagers of Barangay Umingan, Alimodian, Iloilo who are set to begin new lives in a new barangay with relocation orders in effect here.
Subjects of over a year's request for transfer, the literal move of the locals was pushed by local and national government officials following government studies that the entire village is at high-risk for a potential disaster.
Barangay Umingan is 24 kilometers off Alimodian town proper or about an hour's travel accessible only by a single motorcycle or at least three hours of walking. A total of 162 houses are built within the barangay's territorial jurisdiction, all considered "at-risk" households in the event of a landslide.
As such, Second District Representative Judy Jalbuena-Syjuco lobbied before the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). The lady solon sought the approval of the relocation that meant the creation of a new barangay for Iloilo.
Usual creation of new barangays though call for an act of Congress yet the solon's staff said the matter was deemed urgent reason why the NDCC was reached for the matter.
Government lawyer Ferdinand Panes, chief legal officer of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) for Western Visayas shared that relocation of the entire barangay to another is tantamount to creation of a new one.
He said with the approval then in the form of a law comes the plebiscite for the two affected barangays.
In an interview Saturday, Rodrigo Cagud told The News Today (TNT) that Syjuco's declaration meant "good news" for the entire Umingan community. Everyday is a seeming threat to them, he said, with fears highest during the rainy season since word got out of the barangay being at-risk of a landslide.
Cagud was the barangay chief for over thirty years with the post now taken over by his brother, Rogelio Cagud.
Houses for the Umingan families will be built through the help of the private organization, Gawad Kalinga (GK). The relocation site is set to be called Umingan GK Village located at the adjoining Barangay Dao also within the jurisdiction of Alimodian, Iloilo. It is about 4.6 hectares in land area with infrastructure works among the priorities identified by Representative Syjuco.
From barangay halls to day-care and health centers and other similar government buildings, Syjuco vowed to provide congressional funding to get the interrupted lives of the Umingan community back on track.
To recall, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (MGB-DENR) conducted a Geo-Hazard Assessment throughout Iloilo.
The MGB team identified Iloilo towns with steep topography or those with a slope of from 30 percent to more than 50 percent. The figures, the team reported, signified landslide-prone occurrence here.
Chief geologist Rolando Calomarde in a press briefing then also said that Umingan is within the southern West Panay faults. The entire area, starting from Barangay Dao going uphill to Umingan, is predominantly underlain by highly-weathered, bedded sequence of sandstone-siltstone-mudstone.
He was joined in the technical study by government geologists Emma Jadoc and Esteban Felix.
Landslides have since been recorded in Umingan between 1988 to 2004 particularly by the barangay's school building.
Since the government study, barangay and municipal resolutions were passed declaring the area as one of "imminent danger."
Local disaster and coordinating councils would include in its advisories the call for extreme caution in these areas at the onset of heavy rains.
Among the recommendations of the MGB is the immediate evacuation of residents to a safer place with priority to the school here.
Other Iloilo towns earlier declared "at-risk" by the MGB are southern Iloilo coastal towns of San Joaquin and Miag-ao.
The assessment covered a total of 582 barangays with results pointing to 73 "high-landslide incidents."
Likewise areas of concerns are the towns of Zarraga, Cabatuan, Maasin, Dueas, Dingle, Janiuay, Badiangan and Bingawan.