Flood takes heavy toll on agri in Carmen town

DAVAO DEL NORTE, Jan. 23 (PIA): The Municipality of Carmen is losing more than P21 million in agriculture and fisheries when floodwaters from three major rivers have swamped for two days its rice fields and aquaculture fishpens. Municipal Mayor Marcelino Perandos in an interview Tuesday said the massive flooding that has hit his town since Sunday evening (Jan. 20) has displaced a number of families and has substantially ruined farming livelihood of his people. In a separate interview, Municipal Agriculture Officer Maximo Pillotes placed estimates of damaged rice farms at 2,003 hectares which were either at newly transplanted stage, vegetative stage or still at their seed-bed stage. Brackish and fresh-water fishponds with a combined land area of 130 hectares have also lost productivity when Liboganon, Tuganay and Ising rivers have spawned huge volume of flood-waters for about four days now due to continuous raining caused by the tail-end of the cold-front. Rice farms and fishponds are still nowhere in sight as rice paddies have been submerged in about two meters of flood waters, turning Carmen’s wide rice farms into a sea of murky waters which have spilled over more than 2 kilometer stretch of the national highway along barangays Tuganay and Guadalupe. Noting the recent flooding as the second of such magnitude he had witnessed since 1982, Perandos called on concerned government agencies and even the humanitarian agencies to assist his town recover. On top of food assistance and medicine for affected families, he is also appealing for rice seeds, rice inputs and biologics for livestock. Meanwhile, Perandos prioritized relief distribution to agriculture-dependent barangays particularly in Tuganay, Gualupe and Maba-os among others where constituents are largely dependent on farming. “While others are disrupted from doing their jobs, people there have nothing else as their source of income,” he said as noted heavy loss in agriculture. Only one barangay is declared not affected. The rest of the 20 barangays suffered a blow due to massive flooding. Flooded barangays are Ising, Tuganay, Guadalupe, Mabaus, Salvacion, Anibongan, San Isidro, New Camiling, Asuncion, Cebulano, Mangalcal, Sto. Nino, Alejal, Taba, Magsaysay, Tubod, La Paz, Tibulao and Mabuhay. The flood has caused disruption of normal flow of daily lives to some 16,300 families and even displaced a total of 3,405 families who have sought refuge at the municipal and barangay gymnasiums and barangay centers. Others, however, prefer to stay along the national highway. The municipal government had already dispatched Tuesday 2,000 family food packs and the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO) sent Monday some 2,500 packs of relief assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Perandos bared efforts to stretch relief provisions from DSWD by repacking the food packs of 15 kilos of rice into five kilos “so more can benefit from the assistance.” He appealed for more relief assistance to include water supply, as he expected his constituents to experience more flooding occurrences, and would eventually be displaced more often. “This is due to the tail-end of the cold-front, but PAGASA says we will be experiencing inter-tropical convergence zone. If these (weather conditions) come more often, we will again be flooded,” he said. He raised concern on frequents floods to hit his town as the river dikes had been destroyed causing flood-waters to spread all over his town. (PIA XI/Jeanevive Duron-Abangan)