Domondon: Overcoming challenges in the city

HE HAS barely warmed his seat in City Hall but already the people are taking notice of how Mayor Benjamin Magalong is doing his job as the head honcho of Baguio. His promise to hit the ground running is obviously not an empty one.

Mayor Magalong has become the epitome of a busy bee consulting with his people at City Hall during most of the day and signing documents and giving out directives to his subordinates. Afterwards when he’s already supposed to rest a bit after a tiring day he oftentimes elects to go out, sometimes with just a couple of his staff in tow, prowling and inspecting the various areas around the city to find out whether the city’s 15 core agenda for a better Baguio is actually being realized.

His ongoing mantra is empowering and capacitating other leaders, and perhaps the people themselves in the locality, in order to fast track the transformation needed to make a better Baguio. Truly, a leader that is willing to listen to the call for change is capable of achieving great things.

Still from a practical standpoint Mayor Magalong will certainly encounter myriad challenges and obstacles in his stewardship of the city.

One of these challenges is the issue involving backyard hog and poultry raising which is banned in urban areas and mentioned specifically in paragraph (h) of Section 2, Rule 1 of Resolution No. R-674 issued by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), approving the amendments to the implementing rules and regulations governing the processing of applications for locational clearance of poultry and piggery. We take note that it is backyard hog and poultry raising in urban areas which is prohibited.

Now the mayor recently announced a plan to have these backyard hog raisers join a centralized piggery farm for Baguio and Tuba, Benguet and so address the problem of backyard piggeries in the city. But in a recent statement to the media Mayor Clarita Sal-ongan of tuba suggested that a consultation must first be conducted on the proposed centralized piggery farm with the concerned stakeholders and considering that the lot where the proposed farm will be put up is within the jurisdiction of Tuba.

Understandably the mayor of Tuba may seem lukewarm to the idea of a joint venture centralized piggery farm in her jurisdiction given the concerns on sanitation and pollution that might be generated by this type of facility.

But if Tuba is not amenable to the proposal perhaps the city mayor can consider just putting up a piggery facility right in Baguio and within the 8 hectare land given by the Department of Agriculture (DA) to the city under a deed of usufruct. Remember that what is banned is backyard piggeries in urban areas.

What if the city government under a PPP project will construct a 5 storey piggery building on the lot given by the DA which is technically still part of the dairy farm? The facility must of course be strictly regulated by the city government making sure that it complies with all of the requirements provided by national and local laws.

This is just a suggestion but considering that the lot under usufruct to the city is part of a farm owned by the DA then the ban on backyard piggery in urban areas will not be violated. And with the strict rules to be imposed by the city government in the operation of the piggery facility then concerns about smell and water pollution will also be avoided.

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