QUEZON, Bukidnon – Over a month after a monstrous landslide swallowed a chunk of the vital Bukidnon-Davao (BuDa) highway, the economic bleed from Mindanao’s crippled artery has hit a staggering P187 million per day – a hidden tax on every delayed truck, every extra gallon of fuel, and every farmer’s sweat-soaked harvest left to rot. What started as a deadly October 18 disaster has morphed into a logistical logjam that’s rerouting lives and livelihoods, with experts warning of a P14.07 billion year-end gut punch if repairs don’t kick into high gear before the holiday rush.
The BuDa road – the quickest vein linking the bustling economic powerhouses of Northern Mindanao and Davao – caved in like a house of cards under the weight of that freak slide, stranding commuters and cargo haulers in a patchwork of detours. Now, drivers are dodging disaster on a makeshift single-lane detour in Barangay Palacapao here, a grassroots triumph of “bayanihan” spirit where locals shoveled dirt and laid gravel when the government couldn’t. Heart-wrenching clips show residents heaving a sputtering ambulance up a sheer, rock-strewn slope with jury-rigged cable chains – a far cry from the smooth asphalt that once carried dreams from farm fields to city markets.
The fallout? A daily drain of P187 million in tacked-on costs, from the 60-to-100-kilometer detours via Talaingod and Kabacan that chew through fuel and chew up tires, to the ripple of delays that jack up everything from bananas to building supplies. “At the very least, the additional distance adds to trip delays, fuel consumption as well as wear and tear of vehicles,” explained Mylah Aurora Faye Cariño, regional director of the Department of Trade and Industry’s economic development unit, in a stark breakdown for reporters. Her math doesn’t lie: If this mess drags on, those losses could snowball to 1.1 percent of Northern Mindanao’s gross regional domestic product – a billion-plus peso black hole that spells inflation for the dinner tables of everyday Filipinos.
For the farmers in this verdant corner of Bukidnon, it’s personal. Without the BuDa lifeline, their pineapples and veggies sit idle, spoiling in the heat while middlemen hike prices to cover the chaos. Cargo firms, too, are sweating bullets, their rigs groaning under the strain of longer hauls that could squeeze consumers with pricier goods just as Christmas wish lists lengthen. “If the situation lingers, the additional cost can have an inflationary push, meaning, added up to the cost of goods passed on to consumers,” Cariño cautioned, her words a red flag for a region already battered by weather whims.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has rolled up its sleeves with assessment teams on site and a basic pedestrian path slapped together nearby, but critics say it’s too little, too late – no full-fledged temporary road in sight, leaving the heavy lifting to Palacapao’s resilient folks. As monsoon scars heal slowly across Mindanao, this collapse isn’t just a pothole in the road; it’s a stark reminder of how one slide can skid an entire economy off course. With year-end deadlines looming, the clock’s ticking: Fix it fast, or watch those holiday hams – and hopes – get priced out of reach.