Dagupan City, soon a ‘coliform-capital’?

Payback time for Dagupan City government’s official neglect of its environs and sanitary practices in the barangays is here.

If it isn’t bad enough that the Lim administration has failed to deliver on its promises to construct a sanitary landfill, to close the dumpsite and to regulate the fishpens, a recent Fish Health Diagnostic and Microbiology Laboratory Report by the National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center has confirmed what we have long suspected – that some parts of the Dagupan river system are polluted and severely contaminated.

The reported contamination now threatens not only fish farming that produces the city’s traditional fish favorites (including the world-famed bangus) but the health of the barangay populace.

Test samples of water obtained from six sites (out of thirteen) along the Dagupan river system, covering Dagupan City and Binmaley, were found to contain Total Coliform bacteria above the maximum acceptable limit.

Found positive of high coliform levels are water samples from Sabangan, Pugaro, Dawel, Lasip Grande, Bacayao Sur and Lasip Chico. The highest is at Lasip Grande, followed by Dawel, Lasip Chico, Pugaro, Bacayao Sur, and Sabangan.

So while the city government leads in promoting its bangus to the world with its annual celebration of Bangus Festival with all the pomp and pageantry, its backyard is literally transforming into a veritable coliform-culture yard.

City Mayor Lim , who seems preoccupied with his political plans to wrest the congressional seat from Speaker Jose de Venecia, should pause and begin to focus on what’s truly important not only for the city but for the district. If he can’t even manage to have the city’s front-and-backyards cleaned, what can he offer the whole district?

If Mayor Lim cannot discipline the negligent barangay chairmen of the six barangays for their slipshod performance, then wonder what benefit the district can derive from a “Congressman Lim”.

We find the offices of the City Administrator, Environment Unit, the City Health and Engineering equally accountable and responsible for this shameful and discreditable situation in the city. They failed miserably in setting and maintaining the sanitation standards and the infrastructure to keep the rivers’ tributaries coliform levels tolerable.

No thanks to them, Dagupan has become a shitty place to live in.

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