By Gonzalo Duque

 

THE perennial flooding in Dagupan City, occurring even if the sun is shining brightly, is a matter that seriously concerns us.

But we are consoled by the fact that Mayor Belen Fernandez took steps at the start of her term to ask for help from the DPWH to solve this problem. Through her strong representation, Director Ronnel Tan agreed to send a team of engineers to conduct a survey on the two perennially flooded areas of the city—the intersections of A.B. Fernandez Avenue and Arellano, and M. H. Del Pilar St. the way to Mayombo and in front of YMCA in Tapuac.

If elevation of the roads and improvement of existing drainage systems in these areas are needed, DPWH will include these projects to be funded by their yearly maintenance fund. That will save the city millions to improve these projects yearly.

Incidentally, I received part of the plan prepared by the past  Flood Mitigation Commission, which to me is quite an impressive plan that included some of the infrastructure that need to be put  up, like flood gates, steel piles etc.  plus the provision of additional passageway of water to the river through JDV Extension. But  without any money allotted for this purpose, the plan of the commission will continue to remain a plan.

I am not saying that those projects cannot be done but maybe at later times. But if Belen will agree to continue with some of the recommendations of the commission and look for funds to bankroll all these, I agree that this could result in lesser flood for Dagupan under her watch. The point here is any good project left by the past administration must be continued by the succeeding admin to save people’s money, just like when Belen is allowing the construction of a new city hall planned by Brian in his last remaining days in office.

Methinks it will need Congressman Toff de Venecia and senators sympathetic to our cause to sponsor measures in both houses of Congress that will prioritize our need for relief from the floods.

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The doable project that Mayor Belen should continue is the Waste to Worth project which has the capacity to convert plastic into oil and food wastes into methane gas that can be used for cooking as well as in lighting homes.  

We would be the luckiest city in the Philippines and in Asia if we finally have a W2W project.

I heard that Ms. Jillian Boughton, CEO of the Sure Global Incorporated, was in Dagupan last Saturday at the invitation of Mayor Belen, who is moving heaven and earth to restore the W2W project. Recall that it was shelved by the past city administration when it was about to start construction in 2019. 

The project has already gone through a lot of studies and the DENR already issued an Environment Compliance Certificate.  Even the site was already segregated in a  presidential proclamation. Mayor Belen should not waste any more time to see this project through by next year. 

The three-year delay of this beautiful project under the past city administration was too much. With the W2W, we can finally do away with our long nauseating dumpsite in Bonuan and make the same as a true tree park. 

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My friend Sendong So, the chief honcho of SINAG, told me that the regional office of the Philippine Coconut Authority is about to be put up in Rosales. That was our vision when I was administrator of PCA – to see a PCA regional office in Pangasinan so that planting of coconuts in our province can be strongly promoted. This was not realized during my short tenure since I had to leave the PCA for health reason.

Sendong knew that I had long advocated the transfer of some regional government offices based in San Fernando, La Union to Pangasinan as Pangasinan is more populous than Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and La Union or the three combined.

We used to be the regional center when Pangasinan and Dagupan were still parts of Central Luzon. While with Central Luzon, Pangasinan enjoyed its reputation as rice granary of the Philippines. This dream might yet happen under PBBM.

By the way, I congratulate him for sacking members of the board of the  Sugar Regulatory Administration for faking his signature to a document seeking the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar. Given the volume of sugar seized by lawmen from warehouses around Metro Manila, importation of sugar is not necessary at the moment.

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