Dagupan, adjudged DENR’s Best Environmental Partner in Region 1
THE Dagupan City government received the coveted DENR’s Gawad Kalikhasan Award for ‘Best Environmental Partner’ (Local Government Unit Category) of the agency at the culmination of the 2024 Philippine Environmental Month on July 15 in Bauang, La Union.
Mayor Belen Fernandez, accompanied by Atty. Gil Aromin, consultant on environmental programs and Bernard Cabison, chief of Dagupan City’s Waste Management Division, received the award from DENR Regional Executive Director Atty. Crisalde Barcelo.
The award was conferred for “fostering exceptional leadership and proactive initiatives and action to preserve the city’s natural resources and its active engagement in various environmental activities that strengthen collaborative efforts towards sustainable development and conservation practices” in the region.
Specifically, Dagupan earned the citation for its campaign against land grabbers who have parceled out the foreshore lands in Bonuan Binloc even if these are covered by Proclamation No. 38 of then President Diosdado Macapagal in 1964.
Fernandez credited the efforts of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office, Dagupan Police and the City Legal Office, for the dismantling of makeshift shanties and fences in the area during an interview in DWIZ’s “Orly You” program of Orly Navarro on July 1.6
The dismantling operations were done to give way to the establishment of the One-Bonuan Pavillon funded by a grant of P25 million from Senator Risa Honteveros for the construction of Skateboard Park and a Filipino-Chinese Friendship Park.
Fernandez said she already cleared the foreshore lands of land grabbers during her previous term as city mayor but lamented that they proliferated during the three years of the Lim administration.
Meanwhile, she said the City Legal Office is studying options to be taken against the affluent squatters who built permanent structures in their area.
Fernandez said Dagupan beach must be cleared of land grabbers in order to attract more tourist and investors. (Leonardo Micua)
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