ILOILO, Philippines – Though unsure about the reports that parts of Iloilo City are sinking every year, Mayor Jerry Treñas on Thursday afternoon, August 29, said he was open to seek more scientific and comprehensive studies for further confirmation.
The mayor wanted more evidence-based studies with enough data that would make the city government and the Ilonggos more aware of the geological threats they are facing.
But for now, he said that this matter should not be immediately accepted by anyone yet.
Still, Treñas welcomed the results of the study conducted by the University of the Philippines – National Operational Assessment of Hazards ((UP- NOAH) Center from 2014-2020 (results released on August 25), which said that some parts of Iloilo City–the Molo, La Paz, and Mandurriao areas–are sinking by 8 to 9 millimeters every year.
The UP NOAH study also said that among those considered as key factors that cause the yearly subsidence were:
- excessive groundwater extraction;
- urban development;
- and natural compaction of deltaic sediments.
Molo, Mandurriao, and La Paz are currently homes to 68 out of the total 180 villages in the city.
Their combined population totaled almost 300,000, per the 2020 Census of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Though the UP-NOAH report is quite bothering, still Treñas said, “rest assured that the city government has been, is, and will continue implementing measures to ensure that our heritage, culture and economic vibrance will not be casualties of subsidence.”
Molo is known for the its outstanding Yusay-Consing Mansion and for its 293-year-old St. Anne Parish Church, dubbed as “Women’s Church” because all of the 16 saint statues here are women.
Mandurriao, on the other hand, boasts its historic plaza named after Serapion Torre, the “Father of Modern Ilonggo Literature”.
Mandurriao is also dubbed as the “Little Makati” of Iloilo City being the center now of modern developments and vibrant night life.
While La Paz prides its public market where the original La Paz batchoy was exactly born in 1945. La Paz batchoy currently headlines Iloilo City’s food and heritage tourism.
Reliable
Raul Fernandez, director of Office of the Civil Defense Western Visayas (OCD 6) said that the study released by UP NOAH Center was reliable mainly because of the credibility of the people behind it.
He, however, supported Treñas’ decision to seek more scientific and comprehensive studies to further verify the veracity of this land subsidence.
“Second, or up to third opinion matters thus Mayor Treñas is right in pursuing of another comprehensive studies,” Fernandez also told Rappler on August 30.
OCD 6 is now closely coordinating with the city government in whatever assistance it wanted to ask for from the national government to address the issue.
Below the high tide line
Meanwhile, a study also conducted by the US-based Climate Central revealed that the entire Iloilo City will be found “swimming” in water in 2050.
This is a more alarming report, but Scott Kulp and Benjamin Strauss, authors of the Climate Central study, published in the Journal Nature Communications in 2019, were so serious in stating that Iloilo City will be among the places in the country to be found below high tide line in 2050.
Jessica Dator-Bercilla, a science-policy interface fellow at National Resilience Council in a statement released to Iloilo-based Daily Guardian, said that the local government of Iloilo City must take steps now to slow down land subsidence.
She said that Iloilo City is really located in a delta or floodplain area. In Earth Science, a delta is an area of low, flat land shaped like a triangle, where a river splits and spreads out into several branches before entering the sea.
Flood plain, on the other hand, is the land surface adjacent to a stream or river that is formed, in-part by river processes and floods during discharge events that flow out of the channel and onto the surrounding land surface.
Meanwhile, Fernandez suggested that the city disaster risk reduction and management office must consider now the subsidence phenomenon in the formulation of the city’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan, Comprehensive Development Plan and Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan. – Rappler.com