BAGUIO CITY—Dressed chicken, pork and containers of gasoline were strapped to a pulley Monday so they could be taken over a 60-meter breach on Marcos Highway and ease food and fuel shortages in this city isolated for days by flooding and landslides.
Since Saturday, traders have been working to resupply Baguio with goods from Metro Manila after landslides triggered by Tropical Storm “Pepeng” (international codename: Parma) blocked the three main access roads to the city—Marcos Highway, Naguilian Road and Kennon Road.
Government officials had wanted to beef up the city’s food supplies, but the enterprising residents of Tuba, Benguet, moved earlier, setting up the pulley system to haul meat and fish from Pangasinan and La Union and containers of gasoline strapped to a long cable.
Engineers and volunteer workers opened a lane of Kennon Road on Sunday afternoon, a day earlier than the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had promised President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The city government then asked supply trucks to queue on the road at midnight because of anticipated heavy traffic from motorists leaving the city and residents reentering Baguio, said city administrator Peter Fianza.
Commuter vans were allowed to travel down Kennon on Sunday night, but local officials imposed a traffic schedule that restricted the road to outbound motorists from
5 a.m. to noon. Motorists going to Baguio were allowed only from noon to 5 p.m.
SM City Baguio on Monday restocked its supermarket with the arrival of supplies of meat, fruit, canned goods, instant noodles and rice from Metro Manila, a mall official said.
Victor Calimlim, a spokesperson for a group of market vendors, said food would not be a problem for Baguio in the next three weeks.
Calimlim said he was also talking with vegetable traders and farmers in La Trinidad town in Benguet province, whose initial harvest had been stocked at the vegetable trading post there.
Most stocks had been bought and were due for delivery to Metro Manila markets when the roads were closed.
“Instead of letting them rot, we asked that they be sold here instead to supplement the supplies,” Calimlim said.
Prices depend on gas supply
It is gasoline that could affect the prices of Baguio goods in the next few days, he said.
On Monday, many residents walked to work after gasoline stations shut down due to lack of supply, forcing passenger vehicles off the streets.
It may take weeks to repair Marcos Highway and Naguilian Road, but the city government will not stop people from hiking through dangerous road cuts and mounds of mud, rocks and debris to leave the city, he said.
“We did send people to regulate the hikers, so there is some order in crossing Marcos Highway,” Fianza said. People there crossed in batches of 20.
In Benguet, the four major vegetable producing towns in the province were facing a shortage of basic commodities, raising fears of panic among residents if roads leading to Baguio remained closed.
Residents of Atok, Buguias, Kibungan and Mankayan were complaining of the lack of sugar, cooking oil, rice, meat and poultry products, according to officials who said they were praying that Halsema Highway would be opened soon to avert any food shortage.
Gov. Nestor Fongwan said the two mudslides had made 15 kilometers of the Halsema Highway impassable.
Choppers airlift supplies
Two Huey helicopters Monday started delivering food and medical supplies to Buguias and Atok towns, as vehicles could not penetrate villages there since Friday due to landslides that blocked roads.
The choppers were also bringing cadaver bags and embalming fluids to Buguias where landslides killed eight people, Fongwan said.
At least 189 people died in landslides and other typhoon-related incidents in Benguet, according to the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council.
The nationwide death toll from landslides and flooding stood at more than 600 in back-to-back storms that started pounding northern Luzon on Sept. 26, according to the Associated Press.
The death toll was so high that some areas ran out of coffins. More than 200 wooden caskets assembled in neighboring provinces were expected in Baguio, where more funerals were planned, said regional disaster director Olive Luces.
Baguio organized a burial for a family of eight, including six children, whose house along the Marcos Highway was pinned down by other houses that tumbled down a mountainside late Thursday.
“I am saddened by what happened,” said Mildred Ligos, a cousin of Leonora Pinol Picar, who died with her husband and their children aged 1 to 11.
She said she hadn’t seen her cousin in years because they lived in different areas. “And then we met again only now.”
On Monday, President Arroyo distributed relief goods to flood victims in Macabebe and Masantol towns in her 35th visit to her home-province of Pampanga. She was expected to visit more villages affected by the flooding there on Tuesday and Wednesday. With reports from Vincent Cabreza, Delmar Cariño, Frank Cimatu, Gabriel Cardinoza, Cristina Arzadon and Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon; and Charlene Cayabyab, Inquirer Central Luzon; and Associated Press
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