By CESAR JOLITO III

The Negros Occidental provincial government is still looking for permanent relocation sites for evacuees affected by Kanlaon Volcano’s continuing unrest in La Castellana town, providing a long-term solution in case of another eruption.

Provincial Administrator Atty. Rayfrando Diaz II said they are looking at two properties — eight hectares and 11 hectares — in La Castellana’s Barangay Talaptap as possible relocation sites for the evacuees.

Diaz said the 11-hectare lot is close to the barangay hall and a school, which makes it a good place for evacuees to live there permanently, even if the situation at Kanlaon returns to normal.

“It’s better to keep the evacuees within La Castellana because moving them far away would make it hard for them to go to work and send their kids to school,” Diaz said.

However, he said the provincial government will only buy the property if the displaced residents agree to live there, noting if the location will be suitable for them.

“This is to make sure that they won’t return to their homes in the six-kilometer danger zone around the volcano,” Diaz said.

He said the lot owners will soon send offer letters to sell their properties.

The provincial government will send an appraisal committee to check and estimate the value of the land before the procurement process starts.

Diaz said, with the new relocation site, the displaced residents could not be brought to evacuation centers outside La Castellana anymore because that would be far from their livelihoods.

Meanwhile, Diaz said a farm lot on the proposed site will be developed into a vegetable plantation as a means of livelihood for evacuees.

He assured them that all their harvested vegetables would be sold in the markets.

The provincial government will continue providing food assistance to the evacuees, especially those now staying in temporary shelters inside the schools.

Earlier, the La Castellana municipal government had been pushing to have a permanent relocation site for locals living within Kanlaon’s four-kilometer danger zone.

However, La Castellana Mayor Rhummyla Nicor-Mangilimutan said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) disapproved of the local government’s proposed site in Barangay Manghanoy for Kanlaon evacuees.

Although the site is located more than 10 kilometers away from Kanlaon’s summit, Mangilimutan said it is still near the town’s sanitary landfill.

Based on MGB requirements, the resettlement area must be at least 250 meters away from the landfill’s boundary.

The proposed site is only 120 meters away.

Meanwhile, Nicor-Mangilimutan identified three potential relocation sites for Kanlaon evacuees in Barangays Talaptap, Robles and Lalagsan, situated around 16 to 18 kilometers from the volcano.

La Castellana has had the most number of evacuees in Negros Occidental, with some 1,300 families, or 4,200 evacuees, staying in classrooms earlier this year.

Kanlaon remains at Alert Level 3, indicating that further eruptions are possible.

The latest explosive eruption of Kanlaon was recorded on May 13, which lasted for five minutes and generated a grayish voluminous plume that rose approximately 4.5 kilometers above the vent, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology./CJ, WDJ