BAGUIO CITY – The city government is pushing for the immediate synchronization of all its existing plans and programs to ensure that the city will be ready to combat any pandemic in the city in the future.
Councilor Maria Victoria Mylen G. Yaranon, Committee on Public Works, said that the City Council is now closely coordinating with the City Planning and Development Office to synchronize all development plans and programs of the city including the city’s readiness to confront similar future global pandemics.
Among the city government’s development plans that needs to be reconfigured and synchronized include the medium-term development plan, the city land use plan (CLUP), the city disaster risk reduction and management plan, the city development plan and barangay development plans, to incorporate interventions needed to ensure the overall readiness of the city in responding to a worst case scenario.
The city legislator pointed out that the city government was caught flat-footed when the extended Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was implemented to fight the rapid spread of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 that is why it opened the opportunity for the city to review all existing plans and programs to incorporate the lesson the city government learned for future references and to guarantee the readiness of the city in facing similar situations.
She claimed one of the major focus on the proposed updating of the city’s existing plans will be health and other related aspects that should be prioritized to ensure the city government can effectively and efficiently address the negative impact of future global pandemics to the residents and the state of the city’s economy.
According to her, the ongoing ECQ has also shown the fact that the city government does not have sufficient facilities, like satellite markets, to meet the basic needs of the residents in times of crisis in strategic areas that could be accessed by the people for their food requirements and other basic necessities without flocking to the city’s public market right at the central business district area.
Yaranon underscored that the city government learned a lot form the implementation of the ECQ and that such lessons should already be used as bases in the synchronization of all existing development plans to ensure the same conforms with the prevailing situation, especially during global pandemics that heavily impacts on the peoples’ lives and the economic situation of the city.
The alderwoman stated that the City Council will conduct a series of consultations with the different stakeholders in the city to solicit their proposals on how to improve the city’s existing development plans to update these to guarantee overall readiness of the residents in the future.
She asserted that the overall readiness not only of the city government but also the impacted sectors will help in ensuring the resilience of the people during future emergency situations that might happen in the future.
By Dexter A. See
