The cut-mountain quarry along Sta. Cruz Street, Tacloban—bordering Eastern Visayas State University and Congressman Mate Avenue—poses a severe landslide hazard during the rainy season.
Despite clear geohazard warnings and Philippine laws mandating slope stabilization and environmental safeguards, enforcement remains weak, leaving nearby communities, schools, and infrastructure at risk.
The scarred slope along Sta. Cruz Street, Tacloban, behind Eastern Visayas State University and Congressman Mate Avenue, is more than an eyesore—it is a ticking time bomb. The cut-mountain quarry type excavation has left unstable walls that, once saturated by the rains, could collapse in a deadly landslide. Students, commuters, and residents live daily under this looming threat.
From the Regional Executive Director of Department of the Environment ande Natural Resources Art Salazar , he ordered the Mine Geosciences Bureau and PENRO Leyte and CENRO Palo to act on the matter , right away !
The danger is not speculative. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has long identified Tacloban as a landslide-prone zone. Philippine law is clear: under the Mining Act of 1995 (RA 7942) and the Environmental Impact Statement System (PD 1586), quarry operations must include slope stabilization, drainage, and protective measures.
The 1987 Constitution itself guarantees the people’s right to a balanced and healthful ecology. Yet enforcement remains sluggish, and the hazard grows more obvious with each passing storm.
Why is this danger tolerated? Because economic interests outweigh public safety? Quarrying feeds construction, aggregates, in horizontal construction and filling up of lands, but it also feeds complacency.
Local authorities act only after tragedy strikes, not before.
The Writ of Kalikasan exists precisely to stop such negligence, but it is rarely invoked until lives are already lost.
Its high time we see these as a WARNING, let us not wait until lives are lost before we act!
