Thousands displaced by floods in Central Mindanao

COTABATO CITY — Hundreds of families in lowland towns in Cotabato and in Bangsamoro barangays in the province got displaced after repeated heavy downpours caused rivers around and the nearby 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Marsh to overflow and inundate their dwelling enclaves.

The flooded areas include several farming villages in Kabacan and Pikit towns in Cotabato and in Moro-dominated barangays in the province that are under the regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Emergency responders from the Cotabato Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office under Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza were dispatched to the flood-stricken areas to assess the situation of affected residents and provide them with initial relief support.

Mendoza on Friday morning said that their PDRRMO personnel shall coordinate their calamity response operations with the municipal governments that have jurisdiction over the flooded barangays.

A number of barangays in Pikit, in the first district of Cotabato, are inundated since Thursday by floodwaters from the nearby Ligawasan Delta, a large catch basin of rivers that spring from mountain ranges in Cotabato, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces.

Floods also swept through Barangay Buliok and nearby areas that were originally under Pikit, but are now covered by the newly-created Ligawasan municipality in the BARMM Special Geographic Area (SGA) in Cotabato, which is a component province of Administrative Region 12.

BARMM Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding Jr. told reporters on Friday morning that he has assigned a team to support the relief operations of the regional government’s social services ministry in the SGA barangays. 

Sinolinding, a concurrent member of the 80-seat BARMM parliament, said his office staff in the region's lawmaking body are also medical support service experts who can assist in outreach missions for the flood victims.