1. Jun Says:
   September 19th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   Sept.19,2008
   The Real Causes Of Guinsaugon Mudslides According To Geoscientists
   By Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.

   Maasin City, Southern Leyte-What are the real causes of massive landslides in brgy. Guinsaugon which “unexpectedly” occurred on Feb 17,2006 at past eleven a.m. burying less than 2,000 people alive coincidentally during a Women’s Day celebration? At that time elementary schoolchildren, teachers, some barangay health workers, some town employees and some visitors from nearby barangays were gathered at the auditorium for the aforesaid celebration.
   The several causes that the geoscientists were discussing and revealing one by one during a conference on Guinsaugon mudslides were also attended by scientists from Canada, United Kingdom, Japan,Sir Lanka,Nepal and the Philippines. Richard Guthrie, a landslide expert and a research assistant of Dr. Stephen Evans, both from the University of Waterloo in Canada visited Guinsaugon after the great catastrophe, as part of the Canadian government’s aid to the Philippines following the landslide.
   The weeklong international conference that were held in 3 places of Tacloban City, Palo town and in St.
   Bernard recently were also attended by Prof.Mark Albert Zarco of the Dept. of Engineering Science, University of the Philippines,Diliman,Quezon City and St.Bernard Mayor Rico Rentuza. On the other hand, Guinsaugon is one of St.Bernard’s barangay which is less than 10 kilometers away from the town proper. While St.Bernard is about 124 kilometers away from Maasin City, the capital city of Southern Leyte
   Prior to the great disaster, there was a continual heavy rains as early as October 2005 up to February 2006 according to the residents in the area. The continual 4 months heavy rains have caused a gradual saturation of Mt. Kan-abag’s “soft soil”. The condition of its soil compounds was aggravated with the scarcity of forest plants with very less population of huge trees that could hold large volume of soil.
   At the foot of Mt. Kan-abag, six barangays were established where hundreds and hundreds of folks have inhabited and earned their living by farming. But only Guinsaugon was hit and even sparing a nearby brgy. of Magatas. A resident of Magatas who is now a teacher and teaches here said.” If you look at the situation of Brgy.Magatas,it is also highly vulnerable and a potential hit by the mudslide, but we were thankful that it was spared.” The said teacher had lost a cousin, a UCCP pastor who was assigned in Guinsaugon.A close family friend of my late mother had also lost 2 siblings living in Guinsaugon and 5 cousins. Indeed, the great unforgettable tragedy has brought sudden orphans to many children and students, lost of loved ones and hundreds of relatives grieving in anguish, sorrow and agony.
   Former St.Benard Mayor Erlinda Lim, who was supposed to be with the group of town hall’s employees as the speaker on a Women’s Day Celebration in Guinsaugon including a municipal nurse, was luckily spared from the mudslide.Instead,she went to San Juan, the next town which is 7 kilometers away, to attend to another appointment. Another town hall employee w ho was instructed to go back to their office to get the forgotten camera for taking pictures, was also luckily save. As he left Guinsaugon in haste by walking towards brgy. Tambis located along the road, he said, he heard a roaring sound like an airplane. When he turned his back, he said, he was engulfed with fear and ran as fast as he could to save himself.
   When the shocking news reached her in San Juan via cellphone, Mayor Lim who was obviously shock of the unexpected tragedy, and somewhat controlling some injured emotion,said:”Maybe it is not yet my time..But I could not believe that Guinsaugon would be hit by the mudslide and be buried entirely, because it is located one kilometer away from the foot of the mountain…”Until now I could not l believe what happened to Guinsaugon”she said during her speech before some barrio folks, visitors, dignitaries, donors and the press at Ground Zero.
   According to the geologists, the less than 900 meters High Mountain is also located within the Philippine fault line that’s responsible for the yearly movements of pyroclastic deposits estimated at 2.5cm./year.Guthrie study had also confirmed to this claim by saying “that tectonic weakening of the failed rock mass had resulted from active strike-slip movements estimated at 2.5 cm/year”. “Within that, the rocks have been stretched and strained”, he said “As time moves on, the rock began to age and die and finally it collapses”.
   Zarco said that there were many existing evidences within the area prior to the landslide but people (the residents) were not aware of these. Among the things were cracks on the grounds, muddy water coming out from the holes and irregular water flow from the mountain.
   Another contributory factor to the landslide was small magnitude earthquakes which happened the night before the massive landslide and another tremor the following morning prior to the actual mudslide.
   In a report Mayor Rentuza said that many of their questions were clarified by the visiting geoscientists, just like how it did happen and how come it’s very devastating. “While there were studies conducted by the national government”, the Mayor said, “the researchers from the academe and foreign geoscientists are more comprehensive considering their vast experiences in working in different calamity-striken areas of the world”.
   On the other hand, Zarco further said, there are many existing evidences within the area confirming that Mt. Kan-abag is very prone to landslide. He said: “The calamity happened already. What is important is that we all agreed that this area is highly vulnerable to landslide. If the people have been more careful, noticing that the signs are already there, many lives were spared…There should have to be ways to get people report their information to authorities. That’s very good early warning system. For landslide, we don’t have a warning system. We can only warn people by way of monitoring”.
   This report from the geoscientists and experts should also served as a lesson to all residents in other areas of the country and other nations with similar geological make-up to that of Guinsaugon.One of the ways to detect a potential landslide is to be aware of the signs of an incoming massive landslide that were revealed in this article. (Copyright 2008 by Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.)
   Wheat Flour Substitutes
   By Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.

   Now that the price of wheat flour is always rising and the taste of bread is getting lesser and its sizes diminishing, it’s time to look for a substitute or alternative flour. However, it’s not wise to completely abandon the use of wheat flour in making breads and cakes. To lessen the expenses of buying sacks of wheat flour, which we import from the USA, Canada or China, our local manufacturers or flour millers should turn to rootcrops like camote, gabi, ubi and palao.
   I have read an article that camote can be made into flour.Camote, considered by some people as the poor man’s staple, is nutritious as it contains some vitamins and minerals. If camote can be made into flour, it is also
   possible that other rootcrops like gabi, ubi, palao and other edible rootcrops under the gabi family can be made into flour.
   We should exclude cassava (kamoting kahoy or balanghoy in Visayan term) as alternative flour since this rootcrop is not recommended for eating by the doctors to those who have goiter. With the ubiquitous
   availability of flour substitutes/alternatives in the near future nationwide from the four aforementioned rootcrops, the ratio of mixture for both bread and cake should be 50 percent wheat flour, 25% camote and 25% gabi or ubi or palao.
   By these 2 or 3 combinations of flour substitutes, bakery owners throughout the country can save some money for buying wheat flour without minimizing the palatability or deliciousness of a bread, sopas, cake and other bakery products. Bread and cake eaters can also get a double nutritional value from such kind of mixture which can be sold in cheap price to the customers. Squash puree can also be added as the third party ingredients if bakery owners so desire to boost the reputation of their respective bakeries.
   Our agriculture experts and scientists must start now doing a research on some edible Philippine rootcrops and legumes if it can be converted into flour. If a series of experimentations would prove that these organic plants are viably versatile for flour conversion, a milling machine must also invented design to suit the plants texture in the milling process. The kind of milling machine to be invented should be unique that will retain its high percentage of the flour’s vitamins and minerals. What’s the benefit of eating plant flour if it’s already devoid of its vitamins and minerals contents due to the application of various stages of refinement process?
   When some applied measures necessary for the attainment of our objective have already been realized, our millers, producers and businessmen who are engaged in the mass production and selling of rootcrops’ flour must not be tempted to export it to other countries, like what I’ve read about the camote flour. They must first serve the 88 million Filipinos who are in need of nutritious flour to help lessen our malnutrition problem afflicting millions of young and old. It should be made available in every municipality and city in all regions of the country where there are bakery establishments. Our farmers should also be encouraged and persuaded to plant more and more rootcrops and legumes, aside from rice, fruits and vegetables in their vacant lots and farms. This is in order to sustain the needed materials in the mass production of local flour that could be mixed with 50% wheat flour. The achievement of a self-sufficiency status in local flour production from rootcrops and legumes would eventually lessen our expenses in buying imported wheat flour, which is already very expensive nowadays. It would be good and better to experiment if, like grapes, wheat can also be grown here in the Philippines.
   It would be better still if bakery owners would shift to using brown sugar to sweeten their breads and cakes since it contains vitamins and minerals, compared to refined sugar that only gives us sweet and nothing else. What’s wrong if your bread or cake now looks brown because of brown sugar? Although white color can easily attract the eyes of the beholder, in its superficial sense of beauty, but when it comes to food nutrition, color white would mean nothing important if it does not contain vitamins and minerals needed for the body.
   On the other hand, attracting more consumers/customers to buy bread and other bakery products in a certain bakery would always depends on how the master baker has balanced the various ingredients he puts in each of his cooked product that would become palatable when eaten. It would also mean that each bakery or the master baker himself has to maintain the ingredients formulated in each kind of bake for sale. Taking out 2 or 3 of the formulated ingredients of a certain type of bread would unwittingly mean driving away some of patronizers, which is detrimental to ones business. (Copyright 2008 byQuirico M. Gorpido, Jr.)

   Mandatory Implementation Of Alternative Fuel Should Start Now
   By Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr
   The unabated rising prices of crude oil and other petroleum products in the international market is now unbearable to the millions of Filipinos, rich and poor. Its influential power of creating a chain reaction of prices in all prime commodities and manufactured goods in the market and stores are irresistible to businessmen who do not want to be left behind by their counterparts in business and escalate as well the prices of all their products. With the spiraling increase in prices of all kinds of consumable goods, the poor and the rich alike are feeling the bitterness of coping with their daily needs. Those who have very low income Filipinos have forced themselves to refrain from buying other household needs, which decades ago were also affordable to them. They reduced their consumption of some goods so that they can still buy something they need for the next two or three days. That’s why the entire Filipinos are suffering because of our overdependence on gasoline and crude oil. The Philippine government is spending millions and millions of pesos yearly on gasoline and other oil products for vehicles and factories.
   Because of our current hardships and economic miseries our government must not remain callous and insensitive to act. Members of both the Lower an d the Upper House must muster their political will to hasten the approval of a House Bill aim at making mandatory for all operators and drivers nationwide to use the Compressed Natural Gas(CNG)to run the vehicles and factories. The aforesaid HB was co-authored by House energy committee chairman Mikey Arroyo of Pampanga and Parañaque City Representative Eduardo Zialcita. With the immediate implementation of this economic measure, our country can do away with being overdependence on imported fossil fuels, which greatly contribute to the heavy pollution in our big cities and the environment. When this goal would be realized, the Philippines can have a huge reduction on fuel expenditures and its unabated heavy pollution in big metropolis where all types of utilities and factories abound would be greatly reduced.
   Since we have no vehicles and cars suitable for the utilization of Compressed Natural Gas, big financing institutions should come to rescue and help the government to buy the needed vehicles in places like the USA,Canada,India,China and in other countries where vehicles design for compressed natural gas fuel are being manufactured. The Malampaya-Palawan oil and gas fields in the country must be mined now and tap other potential oil and gas fields in various places of our nation to sustain our fuel needs. On the other hand, our big capitalists who choose to be consignees in this kind of business should not be tempted in the near future to mix compressed natural gas with crude oil like we have in all gasoline stations throughout the country, called kerosene by other name.
   The mixture of two elements, we’ve just mentioned, like we are buying at gas station, especially if there is a blackout, will surely result to additional pollution in all our areas. The additional pollution due to crude oil mixture with the natural gas is very evident by the soots gathered inside our noses the night before when we resort to kerosene use as temporary substitute for the absence of electric power. Have you not observe that in your home, especially in the households of poor Filipinos? In contrast, unadulterated natural gas, if there’s a detection of any soot, is so insignificantly negligible to consider as pollution. Some of emission of kerosene (a mixture of natural gas and crude oil) put inside the lamps would also pollute our rooms the following day, if you have observed that as well. This means that if in the near future some tricky and hoarding businessmen would be tempted to do this deplorable thing, the pollution in our environment would re-emerged. Hence, there’s an urgent necessity to screen the attitude of businessmen/capitalists who would like to participate in the Government’s venture in this kind of undertaking where the issue on environment-friendly fuel is at stake.
   Considering this probable prediction of the money-oriented rather than service-oriented attitude of some businessmen to rake huge profit in the name of mixture elements, the House Bill must include as one of its provisions prohibiting any capitalist/consignee to mix CNG with crude oil. A monitoring task force must be created that would include as members the Energy Committee Chairman, energy official and some honest and prudent NGO environmentalists for the purpose of monitoring and regular checking of CNG’s natural content before dispensing the fuel for private and public use. Those businessmen who would violate the law must be slapped with huge fine and imprisonment. We seriously need honest and prudent investors/capitalists in the strict application of such law in order to achieve our goal to greatly reduced our environmental pollution which make adults and children in this country suffer from illness and eventual death to countless of lives. According to reports pollution also causes chronic coughing in millions of children across the globe.
   Other alternative fuel or energy that has been tapped to provide electricity and run vehicles is the solar energy. It has already been experimented and found to be feasibly usable and suitably applicable in running vehicles and providing electricity in numerous households in the country. It’s a free source of limitless energy and is non-polllutant: one of the greatest gifts from Mother Nature that remain untapped for centuries by man. The emergence of Great Minds in the field of Science and Technology are responsible for a huge leap in inventions and discoveries that have provided man his amenities including some of his needs in life more obtainable than before. We can also use electricity to run jeepneys and buses, which is also pollution-free. Makati’s current use of electric jeepneys plying in various areas of the city, which is much lesser in fuel expenses for the drivers and operators compared to gasoline and crude oil, is very encouraging and worthy of emulation for other cities and provinces. The experiments that our scientists, technical men and the experts have been doing are enough proof that the Philippine Government has the capability and the capacity to relentlessly pursue on these projects. A huge budget proportionate enough for its continual implementation must be made now for its effective realization.
   The two alternative sources of fuel and energy that we are discussing are sure ways that will eventually release us from our overdependence on gasoline and crude oil which is now very prohibitive to obtain.
   Global warming caused by unregulated environmental pollution, which also damaged the ozone layer according to the scientists, is not only a Philippine concern and problem. It is also a concern and a problem of every country, every nation throughout the world, whether the industrialized or the developing because we breathe the same air and we live in the same planet. Therefore, it is of urgent necessity that all the nations and other countries of the world, including the United States of America, China, England, Australia, India, Russia, Japan, European countries, UK and Germany should also shift to alternative fuel like Compressed Natural Gas and solar energy to run their vehicles, cars and factories in order to achieve the highest degree of pollution reduction in our Planet Earth.
   To those countries whose climate condition is similar to the Philippines , Nobel Prize winner Dr. Hartmut Michel during his recent visit to Manila has also advised its respective governments to tap wind power and hydro power that are environment-friendly to generate electricity..(Copyright 2008 by Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.)

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