Bago City in Negros Occidental is completing a new project: a village of 50 huts—or bahay kubo—to serve as temporary shelters for families displaced by the eruptive behavior of Kanlaon Volcano.
Ryan Valero, the operations and warning head of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said that compared to a tent, the regular shelter for evacuees, the bahay kubo is “more sturdy and cooler inside” and is “small but more comfortable.”
The Payag Sang Kapag-on Village Project is scheduled for inauguration this month in Bago’s Barangay Napoles, Valero told CoverStory.ph in an interview. “That is our streamlined project now to support the IDPs (internally displaced persons) near Kanlaon,” he said in Filipino.
Bago, the other cities of La Carlota and San Carlos, and the municipalities of Murcia, Pontevedra and La Castellana surround the volcano which erupted last Dec. 9 and continues to exhibit signs of upheaval.
Valero said 94 families in Bago have been displaced as of Feb. 8; of the number, 25 are in the regional evacuation center and the rest are staying with friends or relatives. All are residents of Barangay Ilijan, which is within the volcano’s 6-kilometer radius.
Kanlaon is currently on Alert Level 3, a state of magmatic unrest that may progress to an explosive eruption at any time. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the volcano’s alert level might be raised to 4—or “hazardous eruption imminent”—if the unrest intensifies. It said that under Alert Level 4, frequent strong ash explosions and highly hazardous eruptions are possible. A danger zone has been drawn for all areas within the 6-km radius.
“Many things can still happen if those are the volcano’s conditions and even if there are no signs. At any time, the conditions can change,” Ma. Antonia Bornas, the chief of Phivolcs Volcano Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division, said in Filipino during a press conference.
If Alert Level 4 is declared, Valero said, “we are talking about more than 1,000 families” to be displaced. He said the city government may order the forced evacuation of residents within Kanlaon’s 10-km radius.
As of Feb. 8, a total of 5,582 families in the entire Negros Island have been displaced, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center. Of that number, 2,912 families or 9,205 individuals are staying in 23 evacuation centers, while some 2,670 families or 8,456 individuals are sheltering with their relatives or friends.
Calamity funds
Valero said that since the Dec. 9 eruption, Bago City has been stretching its calamity funds, spending around P36,000 a month for responders’ operations alone.
He said the city government has been sending 3,000 to 4,000 liters of drinking water to the affected areas every Tuesday and Friday because the spring, which is the residents’ main water source, has been contaminated by volcanic materials.
Valero expressed gratitude that with Negros Occidental’s declaration of a state of calamity, the province was granted access to quick-response funds at the start of the year.
“The only problem now is that our budget for the first quarter is somewhat conservative because of the slow flow of the city’s national tax allotment from the national government,” he said.
Taking charge
Last Dec. 9, Bago received the Excellence in Local Governance Award in recognition of its disaster-preparedness efforts. But the city’s department heads were in Manila when the volcano acted up, forcing Valero and other department employees to take charge on that day.
Valero said the city was fortunate that a satellite operation center had been set up for the city government heads. “We do have our [contingency] plan. It’s better to have a plan and not use it than have no plan at all,” he said, adding:
“We pray for the eruption to finally end. A typhoon lasts for three days or so; one week, and it’s done. A volcanic eruption is long-term. It could last for months. Waiting is the most challenging problem. All the stress comes in terms of food, preparation, response, evacuation, and conducting the information and education campaign.”
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