DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/15 January) – We were prepared to ride the habal-habal once again on Saturday. This time, Toto Lozano will go with me and Ruby will shoot for mining-related issues in Pantukan.

Bibo was already waiting for us near the town hall when we arrived. It was 9:30 a.m.

For an out-of-town coverage like this one, it is important to maintain one driver, especially so because this is not an easy drive to the site. It is important to entrust your safety to someone experienced. Habal-habal drivers also serve as your local guide as almost everyone in the village knows them, and vice versa. Continue reading »

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/14 January) — On our second day of coverage of the landslide in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, we decided to take the Tibagon route because it was still 9:30a.m. Besides, the weather looked fine that Friday, January 6, 2012.

The chopper was on standby in case there would be survivors in the landslide. Or it could be used to transport the cadavers if the weather permitted. But I really had doubts because based on our experience last year in Sitio Panganason, the nearest landing zone was at least three kilometers away.

We asked around if the chopper would really insert additional rescue volunteers or additional soldiers to secure the area, but no one could answer us. Everyone was busy. Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo was coming, and everyone was busy preparing reports or presentations. So we decided to take Tibagon Route so that we don’t have to hike back and forth from the site to Sitio Haguimit. Besides, muscle pain in our legs would slow us down. Continue reading »

View Napnapan Landslide in a larger map

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/12 January) – Ruby and I were supposed to finish editing the photos we took on the aftermath of Tropical Storm Sendong Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan cities when I heard on radio that another tragedy occurred in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, a gold rush site.  I haven’t unloaded some of the things in my backpack after the trip to the disaster-stricken cities, nor drained the water in my bladder pack. The headlamp and some camera accessories were still inside the bag too.

The first report said six persons were already confirmed dead while some were reported missing. A few minutes later, the military reported that 16 bodies had been pulled out from the mud and rubble.

I asked Carol if we could go with Gigi. She said, go ahead.

Although I had no idea where exactly the landslide site is, I knew it would be a long uphill ride because I heard about the gold rush sites, sitios Diat 1 and Diat 2, last year when we covered the landslide in Sitio Panganason in neighboring barangay Kingking. Sitios Diat 1 and 2 are in Napnapan. Continue reading »

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 January) – Convinced that chances of survival six days after the tragedy are slim, the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (MDRRMC) of Pantukan in Compostela Valley has shifted work from rescue to retrieval operations in the landslide site that occurred at Sitio Diat 1 in Barangay Napnapan that left 36 persons killed and 36 others missing.

The number of missing people dropped from 42 on Monday to 36 today as four of those in the list were later traced to be alive who had gone home before the incident happened, while two other casualties were already identified by their relatives. Continue reading »

PANTUKAN, Compostela Valley (MindaNews/9 January) – Everything seems to be normal in the gold rush communities near the landslide site in Sitio Diat 1 in Barangay Napnapan as ball mill plants continue to operate and miners continue to haul ores out of the tunnel.

Interviewed just 200 meters away from Ground Zero, Jun Alcantara, owner of a small-scale mine processing plant, said they are already used to landslides, adding that it’s “normal” for them. Continue reading »

SITIO DIAT, Napnapan, Pantukan (MindaNews/06 January) – Miner Bernabe Tolentino could not just watch rescuers dig through the debris. Using a spade, he dug and dug in search of  the body of eight-year old Cho-cho, the fourth daughter  he lost to Thursday’s landslide.

A day earlier, the bodies of his three other daughters – Ivy, 14; Sheena Mae, 12; and Bea, 6 – were retrieved from the spot Tolentino was now digging. Continue reading »

As the world prepares for Christmas and New Year, the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in Northern Mindanao, Philippines were wrecked and inundated by flashfloods caused by Tropical Storm Sendong (International Name: Washi) on the late evening of December 16, 2011 until the early morning of December 17.

Thousands were killed, many were left homeless, and countless dreams were dashed in a season of merrymaking.

Two weeks after the tragedy, people are slowly picking up the pieces and trying to live normal lives again.

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/01 January) –  From the Mandulog bridge along the Iligan-Cagayan de Oro highway, one can clearly see how the lethal combination of floodwaters,  mud and logs  rammed into Barangay Hinaplanon late evening of December 16 to the early hours of December 17.

The riverside village is now a vast wasteland. Piles of logs and debris from the houses that once stood there are scattered all over and in the distance, the indelible image of destruction of the old Mandulog Bridge,  two of its center spans lying in parallel direction down the river.
Continue reading »

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/28 Dec) – True or not, but some residents in the coastal barangay of Santiago here claim that almost every night, they are hearing voices crying for help coming from the pile of logs swept from the mountains during the flashflood dawn of December 17.

One of them is fisherfolk Jaime Jambre, in his 50s, who said that there are certain spots in the pile of logs where the voices come from. He has been hearing voices of children, as well as the elderly, crying for help three days after that fateful day.

“On the third day after the flood, I heard cries for help. The voices you hear, you can really feel those people calling for help are in great difficulty,” he said in the vernacular as he coils his nylon string used in catching fish, himself standing on top of the logs, maybe one of which destroyed his house.

A decaying 20-foot log with a diameter of about three feet floating in the rampaging flood waters swept his house, made only of some light wood, plywood and bamboo. Lucky for them, his family was already leaving their house when the log hit it.

“With the log’s size, my house vanished in an instant. More logs came shortly after that not even a post got left behind,” he said.

Jambre recounted that the flood waters, carrying logs, came from different directions leading to the sea.

Julius Nadayag, 34, and his family were swept into the open sea by the strong flood current. They clung on to logs and other floating debris, wood from houses among them. Luckily, they were not carried too far from the shore.

“I’m sure there are still bodies trapped beneath the logs. We can still smell the decaying corpses. They must be the ones crying here at night,” he believes.

He recalled that it was high tide and the waves were strong when the flood came to Barangay Santiago.

The logs, Nadayag said, came from the nearby Mandulog River and slammed into houses.

“The morning after, a lot of bodies, apparently those hit by the logs, were recovered in the neighborhood. The number could have easily risen to over 100,” he said.

But one of his neighbors with his two-year-old son did survive despite being trapped in the pile of logs. Nadayag and the other neighbors happened to chance upon the father-and-son tandem, then helped them out.

Some of the residents of Barangay Santiago have sought shelter in the evacuation camps while some built their makeshift shelters. Those who opted to stay in the area sometimes group together and sleep in their neighbors’ shelters because they are disturbed by the crying voices at night, Nadayag admitted.

Jambre is worried it may take some time for authorities to totally cleanse the shore of decaying bodies.

As of this writing, 481 deaths were already recorded in this city and 891 more in neighboring Cagayan de Oro City. (Keith Bacongco/
MindaNews)

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/23 December) – Playing too much computer games makes some sense, sometimes.

When I got a message from Maj. Jacob Obligado, chief of the 10^th Civil Military Operations (CMO) Battalion, saying that as of 8 a.m. on Thursday, they had so far filled up 18 M35 trucks with relief aid for flashflood victims in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, the PC game Company of Heroes flashed in my mind, particularly the “Red Ball Express Mission,” which is based on history.

The renowned Red Ball Express was the codename for a massive logistics operation of the Allied Forces during World War II in Europe involving about 6,000 trucks and at least 400,000 tons of ammunition, food and fuel.

The huge convoy had become an easy target by German forces but with Germany’s reduced air power after the breakout of D-Day in June 1944, attacks on the convoy became rare.

But unlike the wartime Red Ball Express, which ran for four months, this version of massive transport of supplies was much smaller and carried not war materiel but precious relief aid for the flashflood victims.

The last time I saw a massive military convoy – with trucks towing several howitzers - was in February 2003 in Pikit, North Cotabato, when a battalion of Philippine Marines was deployed during the Buliok war.  Continue reading »