COTABATO CITY, Philippines (PNA) – The Cotabato-based Presidential Task Force Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development (PTFMRBRD) office has recommended four immediate solutions to address the plight of thousands of flood victims in South Central Mindanao.

This developed after the Office of Civil Defense in Maguindanao reported that floods already destroyed some P332 million worth of agricultural crops in about 5,391 hectares of farmlands in the province.

The report also said 53,188 families are currently housed at various evacuation centers in the province, excluding those who sought refuge at houses of relatives not affected by the calamity.

The evacuees came from 19 of the province’s 37 municipalities severely affected by the floods brought about by inclement weather during the past three weeks.

This prompted top officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to place the entire area under state of calamity due to floods that also hit the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Sulu.

“Apart from Tawi-Tawi and Basilan, two-thirds of the region is affected by flood. That is enough ground to declare a state of calamity,” Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, ARMM executive secretary, said.

Local government units, in coordination with the ARMM’s Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-ARMM) and ARMM’s Department of Health (DoH-ARMM) are now working round-the-clock attending to the needs of the evacuees.

South Central Mindanao region includes the provinces of North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, and Sarangani, and all the cities within, according to a map at the PTFMRBRD office in this city.

The short-term solutions include the swift a 24-hour dredging of the Rio Grande de Mindanao River here; continuous clearing of the 16-hectare-wide water lilies’ accumulation at Rio Grande; fast-tracking of work at the Simuay cut-off channel in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao; and to monitor and protect Matampay Bridge here and Tunggol Bridge in North Cotabato.

The Tunggol Bridge connects this city to North Cotabato and the rest of Davao Region.

“We cannot do this alone. We need everybody’s help,” Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, concurrent PTFMRBRD chairman, told reporters at a press briefing here on Wednesday.

“It would also be better for all of us if President Benigno Simeon Aquino III visits us here soon for him to personally assess our problem,” he added.

At least one flood victim, identified as three-year-old Wanda Kumiling, of Poblacion 1, this city, died after drowning from swirling waters that has inundated their village the past two weeks due to torrential rains.

Some 31,500 city residents are also displaced by floods that submerged 26 of 37 villages here to waist-deep waters.

Local officials placed the city since last week under state of calamity.

“The PTFMRBRD is a mere monitoring and recommending body for floods here but all actions undertaken comes from Malacañang as it is the one approving the budget channeled through concerned government agencies like the  Department of Public Works and Highways,” Quevedo clarified.

The bishop also called on the National Power Corporation (Napocor) to furnish the PTFMRBRD a copy of their schedule of water release from the Napocor Pulangi 4 hydropower dam situated in Lanao del Sur.

“The dam releases a total volume of 98.8 million cubic meters of water, enough to contribute much in the flooding of South Central Mindanao where the 23,000-hectare Mindanao river basin is situated,” Quevedo said.