A 2019 outburst by former senator Cynthia Villar has resurfaced online after she urged the government to act on a scientific assessment of the coastal uplift in Glan, Sarangani — a juxtaposition netizens were quick to flag as ironic.
In a June 14 social media post, Villar described the uplift caused by the magnitude 7.8 Mindanao earthquake as a powerful warning. “When the ground rose two meters and pushed the sea back 200 meters due to the recent 7.8 earthquake, it didn’t just reshape a coastline, it exposed coral reefs and seagrass beds that took centuries to grow,” she wrote. “The DENR is going to make a scientific assessment. Let us make sure it leads to action, not just a report… The question is whether we are willing to listen, and to act.”
Social media users circulated the post side by side with a 2019 clip in which Villar, then chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, dismissed the Department of Agriculture’s research budget for the National Corn Program. “Baliw na baliw kayo sa research. Aanhin niyo ba yung research?” she said during the October 9, 2019 budget hearing, adding that even as a self-described intelligent person she could not understand the department’s research. The remark drew heavy backlash at the time, including a pointed rebuke from the Department of Science and Technology, and Villar later clarified she was not against research but wanted studies with practical application for farmers.
The contrast for many netizens was the apparent reversal: a politician once mocked for questioning the value of research now invoking a scientific assessment as the basis for government action.
The event prompting her latest post is real and confirmed. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources Soccsksargen said residents first reported unusually low sea levels in Glan on June 10, two days after the quake. A survey by the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office in Glan found exposed corals, seagrass and marine organisms beginning to die. On June 11, PHIVOLCS and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Region 12 confirmed through aerial survey and ground validation that the seabed in Barangay Pangyan rose by about two meters and the shoreline extended roughly 200 meters seaward. The DENR Region 12 said it will form a composite team with MGB-12 and local government units to conduct the formal scientific study.
