Landslides pose danger to Sagada villagers’ lives

Balugan, Sagada

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province – Residents of Barangay Balugan here urged construction of drainage and construction walls as landslides occurred often posing danger to lives and property like what happened over the years.
    Mild to strong rains that occurred in this food basket in southern Sagada created  landslides along the Balugan road blocking the route and preventing motorists from going inside or outside from the village.     
    That happened at the height of typhoon Egay. With no intervention in the near future by government or concerned groups, more landslides are bound to happen, local folks said.
    Every time landslides happened, veggies from Balugan were prevented from getting transported from the village to the central tourist town.
    Balugan is home to food farms of all sorts- carrots, potatoes, cabbage, green pepper to include cucumber, radish, bananas and citrus.  
    Harvest is profuse with an ample supply of water that comes from the watersheds of Mount Pakad and Ampakaw where six drainage canals were constructed with waters that flow to big box culverts to irrigation canals.
    Waters here irrigate rice fields and vegetable gardens of Pide, Namsong and Balugan and  also supplies domestic water of some 800 villagers.
    But the source of water supply could be bane to the village since when landslides occur,  gardens and rice fields are eroded threatening the loss of human lives.
    Water sources from atop these mountains need checking to find out what interventions can be done to prevent soil from breaking up causing landslides, causing road blockades, eroding gardens and threatening residences, some folks said.
    Michael Baani, one among farmers and community leaders said they had gone up the mountains of Pakad and excavated canals.
Stronger drainage materials like cement and steel are needed to address the problem, he said. 
    Six outlets flowing to box and round culverts had been constructed along slopes of the mountains of Balugan.
    One was clogged with  rocks from the mountains that resulted to debris flowing to the road pavement during Typhoon Egay.
    Volumes of soil from the mountain top of Pakad to Pey-asan Falls and debris cascaded along the Ambasing-Balugan road isolating the village for days.
    Not until the local government unit scraped off the soil lined some 200 meters along the road side that motorists were able to pass by. 
Sagada mayor Felicito Dula said he hoped the provincial government would clear the area of debris since the road is classified as provincial road.
    Martina Madongit from Sitio Pey-asan said the government should  install retaining walls and parapet near the road above her house to prevent soil and rain waters from getting insider her dwelling and surroundings.  
    Rocks and a steel platform clogged the drainage outlet near the road, reason why soil and waters flowed along the road to houses below and vegetables farms.
    Through the years, water movements from the mountains crept underneath the soil complicated with waters that flowed over the surface of roads, residences and garden fields.
    Farmer and village leader Martin Bagcalang from Pide showed sections of his garden that eroded and threatened pig pens to sink.
Some seven meters from his once upon a time garden at road level already sank.   
    Bagcalang said there has to be intervention in preventing gardens and even dwellings from erosion or sinking.
    He suggested construction of retaining walls above and below the road apart from drainage canals including installation of drainage canals atop mountain.   
    It was in 1935 when a big landslide buried houses and a number of villagers here in Balugan.  The mountain slide practically buried the community live.  
    Johnny Domagos, now in his 70’s, was then a kid when a part of the mountain fell pointing at the very location from his house where houses a number of dwellings now.
    Another landslide during typhoon Ompong in 2018 happened near the mountain slope where the 1935 landslide happened 78 years ago.
    The Ompong landside buried rice fields.
    The 2018 landslide happened at night time, otherwise if it occurred at daytime, may have caught villagers who tended their rice fields, Domagos said.
    Hoping that there shall be no more landslides, he sighed.
    Along with Bagcalang, Domagos said concreting of portions of the area was needed.  
    Road construction could also make things complicated revealing how waters from the mountains get clogged sending water and debris flowing to the road side and getting down the other side of the road to houses and gardens.
    “I suggested that the drainage beside the road be made of a steel or open canal to allow cleaning when big rains come,” Martin Bagcalang said.
    That did not happen with a closed canal shaving been made instead. That debris from above makes waters and soil go down to the road instead.
    Rain and waste waters get inside our front yards and vegetable farms and pigpens, Bagcalang said, adding road project implementors should fix the  road canal.
    Bagcalang said it would have been better if the drainage was open so when it gets clogged the debris could be taken out. He said this was not the case so clogging happened during typhoon Egay’s fury.  
    Soil flowed to houses nearby flooding their frontage and flowing to their gardens and pig pens. 
    Resident John Yogawen wondered where waters were coming considering drainage canals were constructed.
    Geologist Kelvin Gaerlan from MGB who checked the area with other MGB staff said Balugan was prone to sinking since soil was made of sandstone resulting to water run-off and cracks.   
    Gaerlan recommended construction of slope retaining walls and drainage system.