DAGUPAN CITY, June 6 (PNA) — The city of Dagupan is one of the 10 Local Government Unit (LGU) finalists in this year’s search for the Galing Pook Award, a national program of the Local Government Academy (LGA) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
This was known when evaluators of the Galing Pook Foundation led by former Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Victor Ramos and Lorenzo Ubalde were in Dagupan on June 3 to evaluate the city’s River rehabilitation program ‘Sa Ilog Ko, May Pagbabago’ (In my River, there is Change).
The Galing Pook Award is a pioneering program of the Local Government Academy-Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Ford Foundation, and other individual advocates of good governance from the academe, civil society and the government.
The Galing Pook participants are chosen each year from a wide array of programs from local governments after undergoing a rigorous multi-level screening process. The winning programs are selected based on positive results and impact, promotion of people’s participation and empowerment, innovation, transferability and sustainability, and efficiency of program service delivery.<>The city’s ‘Sa Ilog Ko, May Pagbabago’ involves the improvement and maintenance of good water quality of the city river compliant to the Clean Water Act; increase the socio-economic activities for the fisheries sector in the city; make the life sustaining capacity of the rivers economically viable; and create and instill a sense of pride among Dagupeños for the rivers, its bounty and benefits.
City officials said the components of the city’s program is the removal of all illegal fishpens in the rivers, the planting of 280,000 mangrove propagules and seedlings.
The other component is the management of 21 mangrove species and its associates, adoption of an integrated coastal management plan, continuous dredging operations and the conduct of regular water quality monitoring.
At the same time, displaced fisherfolks were given appropriate sustainable livelihood assistance after the fishpens were dismantled.
Meanwhile, 19 motorboats equipped with fishing gears and fish finders were also given to fisher folks while others were beneficiaries of the beach seine project locally known as “kalokor”, the ‘One Barangay, One Fish’ project, floating oyster rafts and mud crab culture project.
Their wives were also trained by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources on the latest standards on bangus processing.
Also included as the component of the “Sa Ilog Ko may Pagbabago” component, is the city’s island tour, the implementation of bangus tagging and the opening of the product center beside the city hall. (PNA)