Manila (AsiaNews) - Filipino president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has appointed the archbishop of Cotabato, Orlando V. Quevedo, as head of the presidential task force that will manage the work of reconstruction and development in the basin of the Mindanao River.
Archbishop Quevedo, secretary general of the Federation of Asian Bishops, will head the crisis response unit set up to coordinate humanitarian action in the areas of North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Saranggani, Sultan Kudarat, Gen. Santos City, and Maguindanao, recently struck by the passage of typhoons that caused flooding and serious damage to agricultural production.
Arroyo has also provided 31 million pesos (a little more than 654,000 U.S. dollars) to drain the basin of the Mindanao River, obstructed by the rains in recent weeks; the decision is intended to cut off the controversy over the presumed inability of the government crisis response unit to resolve the problem in the area and in the surrounding provinces.
"When there is heavy rainfall or prolonged rainfall," Archbishop Quevedo says, "the rivers and the marshes cannot accommodate all the water. The water seeks new outlets, the rivers overflow, the water breaches the banks of the rivers and floods occur," causing serious damage to crops and even endangering human lives. In both June and September, two weeks of uninterrupted rain "flooded various areas of the city," the archbishop of Cotabato recalls. He says he hopes that "the rain will stop soon," so that "the reconstruction program can proceed as soon as possible."