A call for Davao de Oro

With P23.1 billion in assets, Davao de Oro is living up to its name and is the richest province in Mindanao, the fourth in the country. In its mountain ranges is the world’s huge untapped gold resource.

Oddly, though, hundreds of its people build residences at the foot of no-build zones and in Masara, where a recent tragedy happened. The victims of nature's wrath now live in tents after their homes were buried under rampaging mud and boulders following a weeklong rainfall.

Over a hundred lives were lost, and those who survived are housed in tents with nary a plan to relocate them and build them homes. The House of Representatives started a formal investigation to determine who should be made accountable for the tragedy. The investigation, however, is veering away from its objective of determining why houses were allowed to be built in an area long declared a no-build zone.

The congressional probe, conducted in the air-conditioned halls of Congress, is stonewalling on an important factor that caused many casualties. One need not be Sherlock Holmes to point to the culprit behind the deaths of over a hundred settlers in Masara.

The government is to blame for constructing the barangay hall right in the danger zone, thereby luring people to build houses in the area. The imposing ₱7-million barangay hall was a beacon, signaling that it was all right and safe to build houses in the area declared a NO-BUILD ZONE.

It is a fatal mistake to blame the town mayor of Maco or the barangay chairman of Masara when neither of the two had the wherewithal to put up the controversial hall. The funding and the authority came from Congress, the very body that is now investigating the tragedy.

Rep. Erwin Tulfo need not look beyond the confines of the House of Representatives to determine who should be made answerable for the tragedy.

Call it bizarre, but the tragedy in Masara seemed to have happened for a reason. It led to the discovery that in two other barangays, where places had been declared NO-BUILD ZONES, the government had also constructed barangay halls. This revelation makes us wonder whether it is part of the congressional probe.

In another strange incident on a long stretch of a freshly repaired segment of the national highway in Mawab, Davao de Oro, the cement blocks collapsed, revealing a scandalously below-standard construction by the Department of Public Works and Highways and its contractor.

It seems that Mother Nature played a role in exposing the province's irregularities, graft and corruption, negligence, and inefficiency.

The provincial government is also remiss in delivering election promises. Free hospitalization and scholarships for students with a 75 percent average never happened, and, worse, the guarantee that the province would buy the farmers' produce at a premium price never materialized on the lame excuse that the local government lacked storage facilities.

With the 2025 midterm elections just around the bend, the buzz in the province suggests radical changes to the present political scenario. Stakeholders feel they have been had, which could lead to the entry of non-political figures into the political arena to help in the call of “Bangon Davao de Oro.”

Rise again, Davao de Oro!