BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB-CAR) wants local government units in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) to implement a carless day in their areas of jurisdiction at least once a month to help in snowballing efforts to clean the air that people breath.
EMB-CAR Regional Director Reynaldo S. Digamo said the agency has recommended to the Baguio City council the enactment of an ordinance for the implementation of a carless day in the designated streets around the city for at least once a month, or 12 days a year, for the realization of the benefits of helping clean the city’s air from pollutants emanating from motor vehicles.
As a model agency, he revealed that the Cordillera office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-CAR) started implementing a carless day within the DENR compound every Thursday for other government agencies to emulate and for them to be able to contribute in heightened efforts to reduce the pollutants in the city’s air.
“We want to empower the BLISTT local governments and the concerned government agencies in our region to start implementing a carless day in their areas of jurisdiction to show to our people that it is doable to ensure their support and cooperation to efforts in conserving and protecting the environment through simple but meaningful activities. Everyone has a simple role to do in preserving and protecting our environment that is why it is best for our people to cooperate with the designed programs and projects that have a real purpose,” Digamo stressed.
Earlier, the BLISTT Airshed Governing Council passed a resolution urging BLISTT local governments and all concerned government agencies to implement a carless day in their areas of jurisdiction and in the vicinity of their offices to help in efforts to reduce the pollutants in the city’s air and improve the state of the environment.
Digamo opined that the implementation of the carless day should not result to the re-routing of traffic because it will just transfer the pollutants from the roads where the carless day will be done to the roads used for the re-routing.
According to him, studies have proven the major pollutants in the city’s air come from motor vehicles that emit bad smoke. One of the measures to be adopted by the concerned local governments to help clean the air is how to mandate motor vehicles to reduce the smoke emitted in their daily operations.
He said the proposed ordinance of the local legislative body, which provides for the implementation of a carless day in the city every April 22 and June 5, is laudable and suggested the frequency of the implementation of the carless day should be at least once a month for it to have a greater impact in improving the state of the environment and the quality of the city’s air.
Digamo urged the public to cooperate in the implementation of carless day in the BLISTT local governments and the compound of government offices for them to be empowered to embrace other efforts that will reduce the pollutants in the air.
By Dexter A. See
