Floods hit 14 Sultan Kudarat villages, 1 dead

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COTABATO CITY, Philippines–An elderly woman died Sunday night as floodwaters spawned by rains engulfed at least 14 low-lying villages in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, authorities said Monday.

Senior Inspector Esmael Maguid, Sultan Kudarat police chief, said they have yet to identify the lone fatality, who woke up to find her makeshift home being swept by floodwaters in Barangay (village) Banubo shortly before midnight.

Neighbors said the victim might have died of cardiac arrest when rushing floodwaters struck her house, Maguid said.

Maguid said they have yet to validate the exact number of houses damaged by the inundation that also affected a portion of the national highway, rendering one lane impassable on Monday.

Among the flooded villages were Bulalo, Bulibod, Gang, Makabiso, Rebuken, Darapanan, Bungabong, Kakar, and Inawan.

As this developed, the Regional Legislative Assembly in Muslim Mindanao is set to summon Engr. Emil Sadain, public works and highways regional secretary to report on the over P1-billion appropriation for regional impact projects that used to be under the sole disbursement care of assemblymen to fund individual pet projects in their respective congressional districts.

The administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo reportedly commissioned the DPWH to undertake a multibillion Cotabato-Agusan River Basin Flood Control Program, and yet frequent rains continue to swell rivers and waterways, flooding low-lying villages of Maguindanao and other adjacent Central Mindanao provinces bounded by the Liguasan Marsh, the RLA public works committee chair Rabat Cusain said.

Cusain said inviting Sadain to report before RLA members “would give him the benefit of the doubt.”

ARMM Acting Gov. Mujiv Hataman alerted relief and health officials to look into the plight of flood victims.

He also assured to look into the problem of “road-right-of-way” with land owners whose property would be affected by the DPWH flood-control projects.

“We have to resolve the land valuation pricing with land owners and concerned government agencies that seems to have hindered completion of previous projects,” said Hataman, who wanted a review of the private contractual scheme in entering into government-funded projects allegedly laced with irregularities in the past.