Police officers carry a body bag as search and rescue operations continue in the landslide-hit village of Masara, Maco, Davao de Oro, Philippines, February 8, 2024. (File photo by MARK NAVALES / REUTERS)
MANILA, Philippines — On February 7, the morning after a tragic landslide hit the town of Maco in Davao de Oro, Nimfa Garcia-Modina got word that her sister, Chona Garcia, and her brother-in-law, were among those who lost their lives when their houses were buried in thick mud and debris.
“I was asking around because there were already lots of reports that people were buried in the mud because of the landslide. I was just here at home, waiting for posts from people in Masara,” she said in a phone interview on Monday.
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“And then I heard from my sister-in-law that the house belonging to my sister, Chona, and her husband, was completely buried,” Nimfa added.
She said that she last talked to her sister on February 5. The next thing she knew, she was mourning Chona’s lifeless body as they held her funeral on February 15.
Chona and her husband were employees of a contractor for a mining company where Nimfa also worked under community relations department in 2015.
Fortunately, Chona’s children were not inside the house as they were charging their phones at a nearby church in Barangay Masara where the incident happened, Nimfa added.
Overcome with grief, Nimfa posted a video on Facebook under her account name Vee Gee Eim on February 8 asking for accountability from Barangay Masara’s local government for allegedly allowing people to return to the barangay despite knowing the dangers involved with living in the area.
The video, which has since garnered 82,000 views, shows her crying over the loss of her sister as she asked for support from Maco town leaders to exact justice on the deaths not only of her family members but of others as well.
Pleading for justice
In the caption of the Facebook video, Nimfa alleged that Masara Barangay Chairman Douglas Dumalagan Jr. “forced” the reestablishment of the school in the barangay in 2015 and 2016.
Citing her experience during her time as staff of a mining company, she said that her unit rejected this idea as this would mean that people would be coming back to the landslide-prone area.
But this, Nimfa alleged, supposedly did not deter Masara’s leader from conducting a signature campaign to reestablish the school in the barangay — which eventually succeeded, therefore attracting people to move to the village despite apparent safety concerns.
“I am calling on Mayor [Arthur Voltaire Rimando] for justice on these deaths… [I am sure] there have been lapses on the part of the barangay,” she said in the interview as she pleaded for Maco’s local leaders to probe the incident.
READ: Survivors now shun landslide-hit village
Meanwhile, the Maco mayor previously that some “people” were supposedly urging others to move back to the mining village “for their own personal benefit” despite the local government’s declaration of Masara as a “no build zone.”
He further said that following a landslide in 2008 which killed 25 people in the same community, they had stopped issuing permits for building houses in Masara.
On February 16, Rimando alleged that Dumalagan did not inform the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of the incident on February 6 and a prior landslide on January 31.
This was addressed by the barangay chief in a radio interview. He said his phone history would show that he indeed called for help from the local disaster unit.
INQUIRER.net reached out to the Maco mayor for more details on his allegations, but he has not responded as of posting time.
As of Monday, 98 have been killed while 18 individuals remained missing after the massive landslide in Maco town in Davao de Oro, according to the municipal government.