LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government will conduct an aggressive information and education campaign (IEC) among residents in the town’s 16 barangays and concerned sectors on the contents of the Environment Code for them to be fully aware of their individual and collective roles for the sustainable preservation and protection of the environment.
Vice Mayor Roderick Awingan reported that the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Council will start conducting the aggressive IEC as the printed materials of the Environment Code is already available so that residents and concerned sectors will have sufficient basis in formulating programs, projects and activities geared towards the preservation and protection of the environment.
He said that the IEC is equally important to ensure that people are fully aware of the contents of the code before the concerned government agencies and the local government strictly enforce the penalties against the violators of the ordinance’s pertinent provisions where they stand to be meted with fines and imprisonment.
Earlier, Mayor Salda designated Vice Mayor Awingan to chair the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Council that is tasked to formulate comprehensive programs, projects and activities that will enhance ongoing efforts to improve the current state of the town’s environment.
The vice mayor urged residents and barangay officials to ensure their attendance during the scheduled IEC activities in their respective areas of jurisdiction so that they will be fully aware of their roles in the overall efforts of the concerned government agencies and the municipal government to improve the current state of the environment because it is important that the present generation will pass on a good state of the environment to the future generations.
According to him, concerned sectors should also value the importance of having to actively participate in upcoming programs, projects and activities of both the government and the private sectors to preserve and protect the town’s environment to help mitigate the serious negative effects of rapid urbanization, especially in terms of air, water and land pollution and the denudation of the forest cover.
Last year, the municipal council approved the ordinance that embodied the town’s Environment Code which was favorably reviewed by the provincial board to be implemented after the contents of the local legislative measure was published in a newspaper of general circulation.
Awingan expressed confidence that the IEC efforts of the local government will be supported by concerned stakeholders even with the ongoing restrictions being imposed by the national and local inter-agency task forces for the management of emerging infectious diseases because it is vital to sustain the initial gains achieved in the implementation of short- medium and long-term strategies to preserve and protect the environment as the future generations also deserve to live in a good state of the environment. By HENT
