Investigate Cotabato Flood
By Noel Y. Punzalan
The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) here is set to conduct Tuesday an inquest proceeding to determine how city government agencies responded to the flood incident that submerged 34 of the city’s villages the past three weeks.
The SP alone has claimed to approve the release of P13.5-million quick response fund for the natural disaster that hit the city.
“We just want to know how the fund was spent and what the local agencies did in attending to the plight of the flood victims,” Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema, concurrent SP presiding officer, told reporters here in a press conference.
Sema said they would summon to the inquiry the head of the city’s social welfare and development office, city health office and a representative from the Presidential Task Force Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development Project, among others.
The floods, brought about by inclement weather that prevailed over the Cotabato area the past several weeks, has displaced 36,232 families here.
Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr. said the city government has appropriated its calamity fund to sustain relief operations for the flood victims.
This developed as the SP both hailed President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Mayor Guiani for doing their respective jobs in attending to the flood-affected city residents.
“I believe that the President is very much on top of the situation and that his scientific and technical approach on the water hyacinth problem that clogged the rivers here should be given ample consideration by all sectors,” Sema said.
The President, who visited Cotabato last week, has initially tapped the Department of Science and Technology to study the possibility of transforming water hyacinths for economic use such as its conversion into bio-fuel.
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