CALBAYOG CITY- The regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has identified 28 barangays in the city that are prone to landslide incidents.
Most of these barangays are located in the coastal areas where most of the quarrying operations are located.
In December last year, two successive landslide or rock falls happened in the coastal villages of Malayog and Cagnipa, both hosts to a quarry operation.
Reports from the Department of Public Works and Highways said that boulders as big as a house cascaded down from the mountain after an incessant rains hit the city.
Ras said that he would recommend to stop the quarry activities in areas identified by MGB as landslide prone but it is not easy.
No revenue
But despite of the danger quarry operations poses, villagers of Amampacang, among other areas in Calbayog, continue.
In fact, quarry operations have been going on uninterrupted in the said village since 1980’s.
Añano said that aside from having no permit to operate of the contractor, quarrying in the village is not allowed as it is located along a national highway.
“The law does not allow quarrying along the highway, if there will be any it should be one kilometer from the main road,” Añano said.
“Amampacang is along the highway so it is not qualified,” he further stressed.
According to Añano, mountain quarrying along the national highway is not allowed for the danger it will bring to the motorists.
But the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRO) has a contrasting observation on this saying they recommends quarrying along the highway.
Rolando Saplad, Jr. of the CDRRMO, said that quarrying along a national highway is ‘helpful’ to prevent landslide for it will push the mountain away from the highway.
But apparently, Amampacang village chief, Crizelda Flor, has other concern with regards to the quarry operation going on at their village.
Aside from the destruction it causes which includes landslide incidents, quarry operation in their village does not provide them any revenue, Flor said.
“Our barangay never received even a penny as revenue of quarry operation,” she said.
Flor added that when they inquired with the Calbayog city government on how they can get the quarry revenue, they were just informed that it was under the jurisdiction of the provincial government.
An officer of the city’s treasurer department likewise disclosed that the city also never received a revenue from quarry operation ever since it started.
Flor said that they don’t have any idea where they could get the revenue their village should earn.
“They destroy the resources of our barangay but sad to say, we do not receive anything from said activity and we do not know what we should do,” the village official said.
