Police, military helping in relief works for Palimbang residents

SULTAN KUDARAT -- The police and military are still searching for a 61 year-old woman and a grade school pupil who perished Wednesday as floodwaters overflowed from a large river in the seaside Palimbang town and swept through villages along its banks.

Reports reaching Major Gen. Juvymax Uy of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division in Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao also indicated that no fewer than 30 houses along the banks of a wide river in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat were destroyed and forced downstream into the sea by floodwaters spawned by heavy rains since Tuesday.

Local officials said efforts by police and military units to locate the missing persons, Janima Adam and the 12-year-old Haifa Haron, are still underway.

Uy said he has directed the Army’s 603^rd Brigade, which has jurisdiction over Palimbang and nearby towns in Sultan Kudarat province, to help in the search for Adam and Haron.

“The calamity response action of our soldiers there are being done under the auspices of the municipal disaster risk reduction and management council,” Uy said.

Floodwaters also destroyed a concrete bridge in Palimbang, according to Police Col. Noel Kinazo, director of the Sultan Kudarat provincial police.

Kinazo said the Palimbang municipal police force led by Major Joel Martinez and members of the Army’s 37^th Infantry Battalion under 6^th ID are now cooperating in helping affected villagers cross through the damaged bridge for domestic commerce and trade to proceed unhampered.

“Im thankful to our personnel there in Palimbang for acting promptly on the problems caused by the calamity that hit the municipality,” Kinazo said.

Floods due to heavy rains also hit towns in Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces that are close to the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, a catch basin for more than a dozen rivers that spring from hinterlands in upland areas in central Mindanao.

Uy said component-battalions of  brigades covering the flooded areas in Maguindanao and North Cotabato are to provide local officials with manpower support needed to hasten their calamity mitigation efforts.