By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Considering that the government’s way of dealing with mud slides above our roads is unsatisfactory, we will always be having numerous big ones every time a strong typhoon roars by. These can bury you in your vehcle.
Number one cause is the deforestation of areas above the roads. Take, for instance, Marcos Highway. Traveling from there about 20 kilometers away towards Baguio City when it was opened to traffic Monday after typhoon Ompong, I counted more than 40 mud and rock slides. That was about one slide every 500 meters. Heavy equipment of the DPWH just pushed the mud, rocks and trees with their roots on the sides of the road so it could be opened to traffic. Hills of these on both sides of the road were everywhere. Many spots could just accommodate one way traffic.
The deforestation earlier said made the soil soft because the areas up the mountain were converted into sayote farms. With the strong rain these were readily washed making the water heavier and could easily push more soil and rocks down the mountain causing slides.
Luckily there is now a disease of sayote which makes them unable to bear fruit of the usual size and number. Thank God for the disease. So many sayote farmers are now shifting to lemon or coffee production. These are very good plants for stabilizing slopes.
Without trees whose roots could have made the soil more absorbent or could have sucked most of the water, it was all run off washing away the mud and rocks downhill. Without trees whose roots could have reinforced the soil on slopes, slide readily occurred when the mud got even more saturated after its saturation by the almost two months of monsoon last July and August.
As far as I know, this is the main cause of the slides. As long as this is not taken care of, we will always be suffering from closed roads.
Marcos Highway’s situation is the same as that of Kennon Road, Most areas above that road are now bald, mainly because of Kaingins.
Even worse is the condition of the Halsema Highway with the vegetable gardens everywhere, even up to the side of the road. When we were still in high school in the late 60s and early 70s, the Halsema was not that dusty even if it was not cemented. This was because there were trees all around and their branches would be shading the road from the sun, thus, it was often a bit moist.
During those times, soil erosions were not that big and numerous even when slope protection was limited to the good old stone walls or ripraps without any cement to reinforce these. Now, with all the “shotcreting” and reinforced stone walls (with cement and steel reinforced beams), we are experiencing more and bigger mud and rock slides.
The point is to adopt a more “wholistic” approach. All critical areas should be reforested along with modern slope protection techniques. With political will most areas near the road can be reforested as these are technically considered government property. Only a few of these are covered by land titles. If an area is really critical, a land title covering it need not stop its reforestation. After all, it can be expropriated.
But then again, what project did the government do well? Of course, there are. But it can do a lot better with all the money (our money) it is splurging on these.
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