INQUIRER MINDANAO FILE PHOTO
STA. CRUZ, Davao del Sur—Twenty-nine-year-old fisherman Marvin Borganio was happily harvesting bamboo along the Liboganon River in Barangay (village) Busaon in Tagum City with fellow fishermen Rolan Gasipong, 25; Jomar Romuteho, 23; and Kenneth Bordanio, 14, who volunteered to help, on Jan. 10, when water suddenly rose and swept them away into the open sea.
“We thought we’d never see the sun again,” Borganio said in the vernacular as he recalled how the strong current carried them across the towns of Maco, Mabini and Pantukan in nearby Compostela Valley.
“We rolled under the water as we struggled to keep afloat until we were in salty waters,” Borganio recounted.
He said at first, they could recognize that the sea they were floating on still belonged to Davao del Norte as it was part of Samal Island. But then fear started to descend on them, Borganio said, as they realized they were drifting farther into the open sea and it was getting dark.
Romuteho said they were chilling but they had no choice but to swim and find a coast.
“For three days and four nights, we were drifting in an unknown place. It was not familiar but we reckon that we were nearing Indonesia because we could see Balut Island from where we were,” he said.
Remuteho said they ate coconuts and other things “that can be eaten” while floating at sea.
“Until we were seen by this group of fishermen,” he said.
Senior Supt. Ronaldo Llanera, Davao del Sur police chief, said that the group of fishermen was from this town.
“The victims were seen floating at sea by fishermen from Sitio (subvillage) Bitaug in Barangay Zone 4 around 9:30 a.m. on January 14,” Llanera said.
The rescued victims, he said, had wounds and bruises, probably from being swept into the rocky river system in Tagum and Compostela Valley to the open seas.
Llanera said the rescued fishermen were being treated at the local health clinic.
“They would be sent home soon,” he said.
The Office of Civil Defense in southern Mindanao, Caraga and Zamboanga said the search-and-rescue operation for missing persons continued as of Wednesday.
Among the nearly a dozen people missing were children.
In a dispatch, the government-run Philippine Information Agency also reported that aid agencies were continuing with the delivery of food aid to affected families, whose number the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDMMC) estimated at about 200,000.
However, PIA-11 said access to some barangays (villages), including PM Sobrecary and San Pedro in Caraga in Davao Oriental “remains difficult due to landslide and collapsed bridges.”
PM Sobrecary, which is reportedly about 20 kilometers from Caraga poblacion, could only be reached by foot as of press time.
“But relief food has to be delivered by boat as the bridge going to San Pedro (the only point of access to Sobrecary) has collapsed,” PIA added.
As this developed, the sun finally showed up in many Mindanao areas, including the Davao provinces on Wednesday, as the low pressure area affecting the island-region continued to move up north, report from officials across the region said.
Although occasional rains still poured, the weather was generally sunny, providing heat to the cold atmosphere.
The LPA-triggered landslides and flashfloods have so far killed at least 23 people and left massive devastation in Northern Mindanao, Caraga and the Davao Region—farmlands submerged in water or buried by debris, more than 30 bridges destroyed and homes damaged.
Nearly 200,000 people were also affected in the three Mindanao regions.
Mindanao, Eastern Samar and other Visayan areas could now expect sunny weather in the next days as the LPA has started moving away from the Philippines, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) reported.
In an advisory issued at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Pagasa said the LPA was moving away and was 165 kilometers east of Surigao City and 245 kilometers
southeast of Borongan in Samar.
Many areas in Southern Mindanao also reported that floods have already subsided.
In Davao del Norte, most of the more than 1,000 families, who earlier sought refuge in evacuation centers in four municipalities and in Tagum, already went back to their homes.
Romulo Tagalo, Davao del Norte information officer, said Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario has mulled lifting the suspension of classes he had ordered on Monday.
Tagalo said villagers had returned to devastated areas again, which they barely nurtured to life after being damaged by typhoon Pablo in 2013.
He said the rice-producing municipalities of Asuncion, New Corella, Carmen and Kapalong, also took the brunt of the flooding in Davao del Norte.
In New Corella for instance, at least 1,000 hectares of rice lands were submerged under several feet of floodwater, causing huge losses to farmers, according to town mayor Nestor Alcoran.
“It’s a pity on the part of our farmers. Many have started planting last December, only for their crops to be wiped out due to this calamity,” Alcoran said.
Rolando Simene, Compostela Valley provincial agriculturist, also reported a similar situation in his province.
He said among those damaged by the floods triggered by the LPA were agricultural lands that have barely became productive.
In six towns of Compostela Valley, Simene said more than 1,000 hectares of rice fields had been submerged in floods and that the damage to crops could be immense.
“Most of the plants were still in their vegetative stage, or less than 20 days after being planted, and these could not survive being under water for more than 72 hours (three days),” he said.
Land preparation and planting typically cost farmers P20,000 to P30,000 per hectare every cropping season, Simene added.
Originally posted: 1:09 pm | Wednesday, January 15th, 2014