THE Privately-Hosted Evacuation Center (PHEC), one of the best practices of the Dagupan City government in recent years, has been benchmarked by other cities in the Philippines.

Speaking to newsmen last week, Mayor Belen Fernandez revealed the PHEC was adopted as model by members of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) to provide safe evacuation for their constituents when tsunami strikes.

Introduced during the first term of office of Mayor Fernandez in 2015, the PHEC listed high-rise buildings from three floors and up within Dagupan and whose owners signed a memorandum of understanding with the city government that in case of a tsunami, they will open their buildings as evacuation centers for their neighbors.

The program was conceived because of the possible threat of tsunami to a coastal city like Dagupan in case the Manila Trench, some 100 kilometers away from Bolinao in the West Philippine Sea, moves and triggers a strong undersea earthquake.

Meanwhile, Fernandez said because of the recent frequency of earthquakes in Mindanao and Mindoro, as a result of the movement of the Manila Trench in those areas, there is a need to step up tsunami drills in all barangays in  Dagupan and reactivate all PHECs.

“We will have tsunami drills training on the ground so people will be best prepared and know where to go when tsunami strikes,” Fernandez intoned.

Saying that the threat of tsunami in case of Manila Trench west of Bolinao moves is real, she directed City DRRM Officer Ronald de Guzman and Public Alert Response and Monitoring Center Officer Meliquin Bauzon

1. To attend more seminars being conducted by the Office of Civil Defense so their learnings can be shared to the communities and save lives.
2. To coordinate with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) to ensure that the tsunami warning system they installed in Bonuan a few years ago area still works.
3. To visit owners of the high-rise buildings for the renewal of their signed MOUs, and to invite owners of new high rise buildings to sign the MOU.

Noting that the CDRRMO continues to be ill-equipped as a result of the non-approval of Supplemental Budget No. 1 in 2022, Fernandez said the needed equipment must already be purchased.

She lamented that there are also not enough motor boats to evacuate residents from the island barangays to the downtown proper since those purchased by the past city administration are already dilapidated while two others are missing. (Leonardo Micua)

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