A tragic accident happened; an aircraft plummeted towards a populated residential place of Tagum. Perhaps many have forgotten that incidence. I was in grade school at that time, we attended public school together with my siblings and neighbors and we witnessed that unforgettable disaster caused by a machine failure on air. It was a traumatic sight for us kids, seeing that single engine aircraft roaming above Tagum on its usual early morning flight and suddenly its engine exploded above air and crashes to a nearby residential area in Gamao. I can clearly remember that site where that aircraft fell; it was at the back of that old Filipinas Theatre then (the place is now occupied by a well known fastfood franchise), the spot where the parking space of the new Mall is now in place, it used to be a nook with cluster of shanties and small stores thrive. Gamao used to have a public market building and a bus terminal at that time.
During those days, there were only two banana plantations that surrounded Tagum: the Soriano Fruits in Pagaran, Apokon Road and the DFC of the JVA Group, its plantation area used to be situated right where the New City Hall of Tagum now is located. Since then, Tagum City is unprecedentedly rising to become a premier city in the South and is becoming less dependent on agriculture as its main source revenues; however the neighboring municipalities are still the home of exportable, dollar earning Cavendish banana and still highly dependent on revenues coming from agriculture.
Today, there are still plantation aircraft hovering above Tagum City every morning, loaded with 300 to 1,000 liters of chemicals, ready for unloading through extensive aerial spraying on banana plantations that surrounded Tagum City. On the safety of its residents and her city dwellers, there are questions that merit an answer. And these answers could perhaps guarantee the safety and protection of Tagumeños against such similar tragic accident which took place 3 decades ago. Do pilots have their flight plans every time they fly their aircrafts? They are professional pilots and they know about that. Do these pilots seriously follow their flight plans? What are the risks if these pilots do not follow their flight plans? Are the local authorities of the city aware about these flight plans? I think they must be aware about these flight plans because the safety of the general public is at stake. Are these aircrafts still safe for flying? I hope they are, even though some of these had undergone engine repairs and an overhaul because it’s 10 times more expensive to buy a new one than to repair the old. Can these aircrafts still perform 100% efficiency? I hope it can, because any margin of inefficiency on its flying performance could be equivalent to the number of lives and limbs that are constantly endangered in areas where these aircrafts routinely passed by.
What about those aircrafts that took off from the airstrips in the neighboring places like Carmen, Kapalong, Sto. Tomas and Panabo City, do they get clearance from our local authorities each time they cross over the airspace above Tagum City? These are well thought questions by a person who bore the trauma of that air accident that happened 30 years ago- an aircraft fell at the residential area and it destroyed houses, fortunately there were no fatalities on that day and the aircraft’s fuel never caught fire maybe because the whole rotary transmission engine and along its fuel tank were all literally buried deeper on the ground when the aircraft coincidentally plunged and dismembered into a toilet hut (it was not like the water sealed toilet that we know today).
God forbid that a similar accident will ever happen again these days, but it needs the awareness of the whole community to be vigilant and cautious always. Whenever the safety and welfare of the general public is under threat, the force of the law should be used to protect and maintain public safety and order. What if some fundamentalist terrorists attack and took over the hangars (these are located at the heart of some remote plantations within the province) and maneuver those aircrafts for a suicidal mission? It happened before and it took place not on a less advance country like the Philippines, it unthinkably happened in the United States of America, a country known throughout the world to be the most sophisticated and most well equipped in terms of national defense program. Far be it from us, to be ignorant and unaware about any ugly eventualities. It helps to be moderately skeptic at times in order to awaken some sleepy heads. I think it's time for Tagum City to be declared a no -fly -zone (NFZ) area.