COTABATO CITY—Parents and teachers here have expressed concerns that local schools are not sufficiently prepared for the “Big One” earthquake that tops national disaster forecasts, as the anniversary of an Intensity 8 temblor and tsunami that hit Central Mindanao 41 years ago—which left thousands of people dead, injured, and homeless—approaches.
This concern was raised Sunday during a thanksgiving gathering of Muslim and Christian parents and teachers at the Southseas Mall for the bicentenary celebration of the Marist International Community of Catholic Religious Institute of Brothers.
Although “Big One” forecasts have largely focused on Luzon areas along the West Valley Fault, Lincoln Bagundang, president of the Notre Dame of Cotabato Parents-Teachers Association, said local fault zones could unpredictably trigger major earthquakes and tsunamis, as it happened here on Aug. 17, 1976.
Official government figures indicate more than 8,000 people were killed or went missing, 10,000 were injured, and 90,000 were left homeless in the 1976 earthquake, making it one of the most devastating calamities to befall the country.
According to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology’s historical catalog of earthquakes in the last 100 years, Central and Western Mindanao in the Southern Philippines have been “characterized by moderate to high seismicity.
Bagundang said the NDC-PTA has tried knocking on the doors of a Western embassy in Manila to possibly lend support in a continuing capacity-building for the school community ahead of any disaster.
He said that under the NDC-PTA charter, the group could seek and receive assistance in the form of donations, endowments or grants in-aid from any donor organization within certain terms of partnership programs.
The group asked the embassy to partner in such endeavors as provision and management of small grants, which may include survival kits, medics and rescue tools, medical instruments and medicines, as well as books and computers to help enhance the preparation and transition for students toward a shift to the K-to-12 education program.
Amid the threat of terrorism and nightlife here being curtailed by the state of martial law, around 400 Muslim and Christian parents and teachers gathered for the 200th founding celebration of the Marist Brothers by St. Marcellin Champagnat of France in 1817.
Brother Ted Fernandez FMS, Cotabato Marist Superior, said the growth of the Marist Community has been characterized by the historical emergence of revolution, civil war, and even by the Cold War—and spanning through the age of extremism.
Brother Fernandez said the French Revolution in the late 1700s drove the Marist community out of France, and sought its expansion towards Italy to the south; Spain to the east; Britain to the north and Germany to northwest, and then to the Asia Pacific region.