That section was totally washed out. The whole mountain side slid to kingdom come. Until the other day, vehicles going to Mountain Province and parts of Benguet beyond Sinipsip, Buguias had to take circuitous routes, making trips a lot more expensive and more tiring.
The area has long been a sinking area. Yet government never did anything about it. This is the default of our government, even local ones. No preventive measures. To just wait until a problem becomes worse, until you cannot anymore turn a blind eye to it.
And mark our words. Nothing will be done to prevent a similar occurrence in that zone where every mountain is now bald having been converted into vegetable patches. Even very steep parts. No sustainable remedies such as requiring these to be reforested and maintained as such.
Information that filtered down from elders are to the effect those mountains were logging areas. Sinipsip was supposed to be where they dumped sawdust from the sawmills. On the whole, therefore, the soil was not compacted enough into reliable solidity. That would have taken millions of years.
Again, for emphasis, the situation could have been ameliorated had these been reforested and maintained as such. While this country has been churning out topnotch foresters, we never made use of their talents and abilities. Just like experts in other fields. We always wait until disasters occur.
So we expect more of such to happen and we never learn our lesson. The people will vote again into public offices the same kind of people. Talk of ignorance and stupidity. And the vicious cycle will go on to victimize our children and their children.
As late as 50 years ago, that particular area was relatively wooded. Erosions were not so rampant and were usually just small ones. Then everybody there tasted the proceeds from the cultivated green gold of temperate or highland vegetables. They got crazy converting every square inch of deforested surface into vegetable farms. They are now carpeted with cabbages, pechay, beans, potatoes, etc.
People got rich in the process but the vast majority who never saw even a cent of the financial returns of the farm operations now have to suffer.
Luckily, there were no houses there which could have meant a massacre of inhabitants.**