BALON DAGUPAN NEWS

MAYOR Belen T. Fernandez is set to make her promise to solve the 50-year-old garbage problem of the city when she led in the turnover of core shelter assistance to 30 scavenger families living in the dumpsite to pave the way for the establishment soon of a waste-to-worth facility.

“Our Waste-to-Worth Project is now on its evaluation stage. Very soon, this will be built and put into operation to be our long term solution to our 50-year-old problem on garbage,” Mayor Fernandez said when she, along with Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Regional Director Marcelo Nicomedes J. Castillo, turned over the project in Sitio Korea, Bonuan Binloc to the beneficiaries.

“The health of the people is our utmost concern and this has been my vision even when I was still a city councilor. I promised myself that if I become the mayor of our beloved city I will try my best to close the dumpsite because I feel the sentiments of the residents in the area and in the neighboring barangays due to the foul smell and the smoke coming from the dumpsite,” added Fernandez.

At the same time, she assured that the city will conduct an investigation to ascertain what or who triggered the suspicious fire at the dumpsite that started simultaneously in three different points, causing heavy smoke in Bonuan Gueset and the neighboring residential areas of Bonuan Binloc and Bonuan Boquig.

Fernandez sought the establishment of a waste facility for the city when she assumed as mayor in 2013, and which she doggedly pursued when she was invited to Chile, United Nations and APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit so that a long-term solution to the city’s waste problem can be instituted.

Part of the mayor’s long term plan for city’s waste problem is the relocation of the 30 families living in the dumpsite along with the construction of a Day Care Center and a Health Center in the area.

The 30 scavengers and their families at the city’s 50-year-old dumpsite receive the key of the 30 core shelters at Sitio Korea in Binloc under the city’s “Maayos na Bahay, Maunlad na Buhay” program. Handling the key are Mayor Belen T. Fernandez (left) and DSWD Region 1 Director Marcelo Nicomedes J. Castillo (right). (CIO photo by Jojo Tamayo) 

Each core shelter costs P156,000 from the P2.1 million released by the DSWD with the city providing P2.6 million counterpart.

The core shelter project is under the city’s “Maayos na Bahay, Maunlad na Buhay” program.

“We are supporting Dagupan City because they are helping people and we are one with that. We are even ready to provide assistance again relative to the city’s plan of providing these families with livelihood,” said Castillo.

“In fact, the mayor has given them more than enough because I noticed that the city also built a day care center and a health center in this area for these families to take advantage of, and now she is providing them employment in the government,” added Castillo.

Fernandez promised to the 30 families that once the waste facility operates, they will be given the first priority to be employed at the facility or they can choose to stay as street sweepers and market janitors of the city government. (Joseph C. Bacani/CIO)

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