Barangay Masara, where a major landslide last February killed almost a hundred people, does not exist anymore, according to Maco Mayor Arthur Carlos Voltaire Rimando.
“We still have to wait when it will be reestablished. But as of now, the residents do not have a barangay of their own. Most likely, Barangay Masara does not exist anymore,” Rimando told MindaNews in an interview in his office Monday.
He said that as of the moment, Masara’s residents are dispersed in different evacuation areas in the municipality.
Rimando said that residents might opt to merge parts of the barangay with other adjacent barangays. But he was quick to add that “it will be a long process” because merging barangays require a lot of things, like going through a process in Congress, then a plebiscite, among other things.
Rose Herda, secretary-in-charge of G-Works Kampo Uno, which serves as one of the evacuation sites for the affected Barangay Masara residents, said that reuniting Masara as one barangay “might be too far from happening.”
“It’s unlikely. We’re all dispersed in neighboring barangays,” she said.
Kampo Uno is situated in neighboring Barangay Elizalde.
The local government of Maco, together with other government and private stakeholders, are setting up permanent settlements among Barangay Masara evacuees.
Rimando said that houses measuring 100 square meters are being prepared for the evacuees.
He said there will be 70 of such houses in Barangay Panibasan and 300 in Barangay Calabcab.
Meanwhile, Rimando said that the municipality’s calamity fund of P8 million for this year “has been used up” due to the landslide.
The mayor admitted they have already utilized what they allocated and approved by the municipal council—P8 million—staggered in four quarters.
When asked if the remaining funds might not be enough to sustain for the year, the mayor nodded.
“P8 million is so small. The havoc used up the funds,” Rimando, referring to the massive landslide, told MindaNews in an interview in his office.
More than 5,000 residents have been affected by the landslide. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)
