Local NGO to make Kinatarcan Island “disaster resilient”

CEBU, Philippines - A local non-government organization vowed to help make Kinatarcan Island in Santa Fe not only disaster-prepared but resilient as well.

Fr. Tito Soquiño, executive director of Santo Niño de Cebu Augustinian Social Development Foundation, said the plan was hatched after super typhoon Yolanda ravaged the island.

“SNAF plans to make Kinatarcan disaster resilient...make it a prototype for other areas to follow,” said Soquiño.

He said the island, which has around 2,000 households or 9,000 people, has not yet recovered from Yolanda and if something like that will come, it will suffer the same fate or worse.

 Soquiño said Kinatarcan must be able to withstand such kind of disaster by providing it with structures that will serve us school-cum-evacuation sites, train the locals, among others.

Soquiño said majority of the houses in the island are made of light materials that when Yolanda came these were easily wiped out.

Today, Kinatarcan is still trying to recover from that typhoon.

Last week, SNAF and environmental divers from the Knight-Stewards of the Sea, Inc. (Seaknights) visited the island for the fifth time, this time to check its two marine protected areas.

Soquiño said they want to help rehabilitate these MPAs considering that the island people thrive on fishing and without fish several of them will starve.

William Villaver, marine biologist of Seaknights, said the two MPAs greatly suffered from dynamite fishing. The group, through the assistance of Oxfam, installed marker buoys provided by the Santa Fe government but these were removed the following day after some fishermen reacted violently on what they were doing. He said they could not risk leaving those markers behind as they might be cut by the locals. These were replaced with empty water bottles before the group left.

“Padayun gihapon illegal fishing commonly dynamite. Sa Barangay Bituon, when we installed the buoys, one fisherman shooed us away,” Soquiño said. He said once the local fishers group has agreed to protect the markers and the resources that they are protecting, they will be back next month to return the markers there.

“It is ironic they thrive on fish but they have no more fish because they destroy their environment,” he said.

The island only has about 11% coral formation to which Soquiño, an environmentalist, said is “too small” for an area that thrives on fishing. He  said the area is also overfished.

The town’s bantay dagat is also not functioning well for lack of financial support, said Soquiño.

SNAF is, however, willing to help the island for its sustainable plan for Kinatarcan. — (FREEMAN)