Dagupan Mayor Zeroes on Floods as Most Urgent Problem

                                                    FIRST 100 DAYS REPORT

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY - In the First 100 Days Report of the mayor here, he zeroed on the scourge of floods as the most pressing problem his administration faces.

Mayor Marc Brian Lim said that the topographic survey he commissioned through the Dagupan Anti-Flooding Commission will be the basis of all flood mitigation projects that will soon be finished.

“I thank the men and women of the Flood Mitigation Commission, led by Joseph Lo, for volunteering, at no expense to the city government, their time and expertise, to once and for all document and implement our long term strategic plan to solve our flooding problem,” he stressed last Thursday to a limited number of invited crowd at the narrow space’s City’s Museum here.

REPORT - Dagupan City Mayor Marc Brian Lim during his First 100 Days Report to his constituents. 

The open dumpsite in Barangay Bonuan Binloc has been dubbed by Lim as an ignorance problem that needs urgent action.

During the six years of former mayor Belen T. Fernandez’s administration, the waste yard has been neglected and its deterioration was hidden from the public because officials barred media men to investigate and report it.

“If we are to analyze it fully, it was really an ignorance problem. At least now we can say that Teddy Villamil and the Waste Management Division are focused on trying to resolve it”.

He will expedite the solution of the herculean garbage problem because of the eco-park in the adjacent area.

He said village officials have been tasked to segregate their waste, recover the valuables through a material recovery facility (MRF) while boats are being procured to service the trash of the island barangays.

“One third of the dumpsite’s waste, which is adjacent to the beach, will soon be hauled out to a sanitary landfill. At least now there is a plan, that something is being done, and the issue no longer being ignored,” he read his speech.

He cited that the revenues collected by the local government unit is a crucial metric how it performs.

“Market collection from July 1 to September 30 of this year increased by PhP 10.1 million compared to the same time period last year”

Lim lauded the City Agriculture Office headed by Emma Molina and the Bantay Ilog Team led by Jessie Doria who have the unenviable task of clearing our rivers of illegal fish pens.

“Dura lex sed lex – the law may be harsh, but it is the law. Based on data provided by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, our rivers need help. If we do not act now, sooner than later, the water quality of our rivers will not be viable for any kind of aquaculture. I thank the barangay officials and the City Agriculture Office for recently addressing this problem in a forum with the DENR,” Mayor Lim stressed.

Despite the plaudits given by Lim to those city officials, the opposition members and some media men assailed the proliferation of illegal fish pens that returned with impunity from the time he assumed office at noon of June 30 this year.

Several of them said the apathy of the Lim administration to eliminate these fish pens will undermine the Dagupan Anti-Flooding Commission he created to crow his solution to the perennial flooding problems here.