Philippine Star
COTABATO CITY – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has joined hands with military and civilian volunteers to unclog the Rio Grande de Mindanao of some 200 tons of water lilies that have caused it to overflow and flood more than half of the city.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said most of the guerrillas they sent yesterday to the downstream channel of the Rio Grande at the boundary of Cotabato City and Sultan Kudarat, Shariff Kabunsuan are either farmers or fishpond workers who have experience in digging soft, muddy soil.
"The public should not be alarmed because they are there not to fight government forces, but to help unclog the river to hasten its downstream flow into the sea and drain the flooded areas in Cotabato City and surrounding towns," Kabalu said.
The rains are gone, but the city’s low-lying, mostly residential, areas remain flooded, as water lilies block the downstream channel of the Rio Grande de Mindanao, reducing by 70 percent the flow of water into the nearby Moro Gulf, about five kilometers west.
"The MILF is helping unclog that portion of the river to show that we are for peace and development and as part of our confidence-building with local authorities and all of the sectors in Cotabato City and nearby areas," Kabalu told reporters.
Officials in the adjoining towns of Datu Piang in Maguindanao and Midsayap in North Cotabato reported over the weekend that two bridges connecting the two municipalities have been destroyed after thick water lilies from surrounding marshes tangled with their structural foundations, causing them to collapse.
The mayor of Datu Piang, Hadji Samer Uy, said the 30-meter Sajid Piang Memorial Bridge that also connects the two towns, could also collapse if the water lilies that have accumulated under it could not be removed within days.
"We shall submit our reports on all of these very unfortunate developments in our area to President Arroyo," said Ampatuan, who chairs the regional disaster coordinating council. "Surely, President Arroyo will do something to help us address all of these concerns."
Ampatuan’s office has already spent P7 million in relief assistance for flooded towns in Shariff Kabunsuan and Maguindanao.
Springing from as far as Bukidnon and traversing portions of the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh, the Rio Grande de Mindanao and another major waterway, the Allah River, originating from the forested hinterlands of South Cotabato, both drain in rivers crisscrossing Cotabato City and Shariff Kabunsuan before flowing into the Moro Gulf.
Both the Rio Grande de Mindanao and wide tributaries of the Allah River, traversing what are now Kabuntalan, Northern Kabuntalan and Datu Piang, were used as shipping routes by the Spanish and American colonizers from the 16th to the 19th century.
"Now these rivers are so silted, heavily silted," Ampatuan said. -- John Unson
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