Cerilles: Logging not solely to blame for floods

Expect a Cerilles-Mercado debate.

Taking potshots at anti-logging advocates, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Antonio Cerilles said yesterday that logging cannot be blamed solely for the flash floods that swamped several provinces in Mindanao.

As of yesterday, at least 20 people have died and over 35,000 families have been affected by the floods that hit the Agusan, Surigao and Davao provinces and Compostela Valley, the Department of Social Welfare and Development said. Heavy rains since last week triggered the floods and landslides.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, who also chairs the National Disaster Coordinating Council, blamed unabated logging operations for the flash floods and landslides.

Known to be an anti-logging advocate, he said both legal and illegal logging operations should be stopped to prevent the occurrence of flash floods and landslides in the countryside.

"We should have a total log ban in the country," said Mercado, who inspected the flood-hit areas last Tuesday. A proposed measure is pending in Congress.

But Cerilles countered that the Presidential Task Force on Water Resources and Management has identified the flood-stricken provinces as highly susceptible to floods.

"If our detractors will only look at the topographic, vegetative and flood-susceptibility maps, it is obvious that the flooded areas, by geography, are flood-prone areas. With deforestation or no deforestation, floods have been a part of the history of the Agusan and Davao provinces," Cerilles said.

He said floods have devastated Agusan as far back as 1861.

"History also bears the fact that there were devastating floods in Agusan more than a century ago when no logging of any kind existed. These floods occurred with great regularity," he added.

Citing historical records, Cerilles said 21 floods hit Davao from 1960 to 1995, mostly in January and February when floodwaters reached about 50 centimeters high. - With Mayen Jaymalin