With more than half of target municipalities soon to have geohazard maps which will be used to forestall damage from landslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department and Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is seeking a supplemental budget of PhP40 million to fast track geohazard mapping in the remaining half of “unmapped” municipalities this year.

MGB Director Horacio Ramos said the supplemental amount is needed for the Department to increase its target coverage to 500 municipalities from the original 330 following the series of major typhoons that hit the country the past year.

Ramos said the amount that MGB is seeking would supplement the PhP50 million approved regular budget, making the total budget of PhP90 million for this year’s project activity.

Ramos said that last year the project has used up a total budget amounting to PhP73 million, PhP10 million of which came from the regular budget and the other PhP63 million, a supplemental budget.

The completion of the geohazard mapping of 500 municipalities this year would mean a 90% accomplishment already in 2007 of 1,200 municipalities which were supposed to be covered up to the early part of 2009 as required by the three-year Geohazard Mapping and Assessment Program, Ramos said.

He said that the geohazard mapping target for 2007 also includes the completion of the assessment of 110 priority municipalities nationwide, production of geohazard maps of all the municipalities already assessed, and the distribution of the maps to various local government units and stakeholders.

Other targets for the period are production of educational materials such as posters, videos and pamphlets for distribution to the target municipalities; information campaigns on how to use the geohazard maps to be conducted in the Cagayan Valley, Isabela, Camarines Norte, Davao del Norte, Agusan del Sur, and Agusan del Norte; and identification of relocation sites for people living in areas identified as vulnerable to geohazards.

The DENR recently reported a 60.5% accomplishment of the geohazard mapping program for 2006.

DENR Secretary Angelo T. Reyes said the accomplishment represented 724 municipalities mapped and assessed out of the total 1,200 priority municipalities targeted for completion nationwide.

Reyes also said about 374 geohazards quadrangle maps to the scale 1:50,000 have also prepared been so far under the project.

The government’s geohazard mapping and assessment project was started last year when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the DENR to complete a PhP 90-million geohazard mapping covering at least half of the towns in the Philippines within three years.

The President made the order after the landslide in Guinsaugon, St. Bernard, Southern Leyte in February last year which killed more than a thousand people. (DENR-PAO)

February 1, 2007