By John Felix Unson
COTABATO CITY --- More than 300 hectares of rice farms were ravaged by floods that hit central Mindanao towns close to the Liguasan Delta that also forced no fewer than 20,000 families to relocate to higher grounds.
The 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta swelled and overflowed last week following heavy rains in mountain ranges around.
Dozens of barangays in the adjoining provinces of North Cotabato in Region 12 and in Maguindanao under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao have since inundated.
The Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or the READI contingent of BARMM, on Tuesday initially distributed relief support to 480 flood-stricken families in Barangay Macasandeg in Pikit.
The READI delivered food supplies to 2, 693 more families in Barangay’s Lagunde and Balong in Pikit on Wednesday, according to a report from BARMM's Ministry of Interior and Local Government.
The quick deployment READI contingent expanded on Wednesday its relief missions to other areas in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.
North Cotabato Gov. Nancy Catamco said Thursday provincial planners and agriculturists shall formulate measures on how to cushion the adverse effects of the inundation of rice farms in the province.
“Over and above that are our relief initiatives for the flood victims. So many farmers in our province lost their crops and farm animals to these floods,†Catamco said.
Catamco, chairperson of the provincial disaster risk reduction and management council, said Thursday she is thankful to the police and the military for helping push forward the relief missions of her administration and the local government units in the flooded towns.
BARMM agriculture officials said Thursday said the floods destroyed no less than 160 hectares of supposedly ready-to-harvest rice in Maguindanao province alone.
Catamco and BARMM officials are worried of the long term effects to farmers of losing crops to floods.
BARMM’s local government minister, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who is overseeing the operation of the regional government’s READI contingent, said Thursday they will do their best to reach out to flood victims now in relief sites.
Most of the evacuees are now in makeshift shelters and in public school campuses in high grounds in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.
Sinarimbo said their relief missions are jointly being carried out by READI and the social services and the health ministries of BARMM, all under the office of the region’s chief minister, Ahod Ebrahim.
The most affected barangays are in interior areas in the adjoining towns of Pagalungan and Montawal in Maguindanao and in nearby Pikit and Kabacan in North Cotabato.
The four towns are dotted with swamps and crisscrossed by rivers that connect to the vast Liguasan Delta, a catch basin for a dozen rivers that spring from forested hinterlands in Bukidnon,Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, North Cotabato and South Cotabato provinces.
The local government units in Pagalungan, Montawal and Pikit have relocated hundreds of families to higher grounds with the help of volunteer organizations, the police and units of the Army’s 602nd Brigade of the 6th Infantry Division.
Key members of the Pikit municipal disaster risk reduction and management council said Sunday barangays in the municipality have been flooded since early this week. (JOHN FELIX UNSON, October 22, 2020)
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