Climate Change

Recently, Davao Region has suffered from heavy rains that caused rivers burst to their seams inundating communities nearby and those low-lying urban areas like Davao City. Affected residents fled to evacuation centers.     

The tailend of a cold front was blamed for the natural calamity that struck the region and other parts of Mindanao, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geographical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).

But we are alarmed of the "message" these recent events that hit Mindanao. The strong typhoons that lambasted some regions in Mindanao last year and the flashfloods which plowed through the economic bases and homesteads of the hapless victims are an indication that something is wrong with the pattern of the climate.

Mindanao used to be typhoon-free. I remember that I was six years old when a strong typhoon was reported to supposedly hit Davao. This was during the early seventies, I guess. And because of that news, some of our neighbors had to stay overnight in the two-storey house of our grandparents. Local businessmen would love to talk about Mindanao as ideal for agri-production because it is claimed to be typhoon-free as compared to Luzon and the Visayas Region. 

But if we look back at what happened last year - how Typhoon Sendong and Pablo wiped-out a number of communities, we are afraid to say that the phenomenon of climate change is for real as far as Mindanao is concerned.