SECRETARY Mary Ann Lucille Sering of the Commission on Climate Change (CCC) declared that the land use plan of local government units including Cagayan de Oro is no longer primed for extreme weather events.
This, she said during the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Zonta Club of Cagayan de Oro II in a hotel here in the city last week.
Zonta is an international organization of businesspersons and professionals gearing for the advancement of the status of women worldwide.
Sering, however, said it takes a lot of political will and resources for a local chief executive to prohibit people from living in the said lands.
Danger zones
In Cagayan de Oro, she said, Isla de Oro and the other islets along the river banks had long been declared a dangerous zone for residents by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III himself after the onslaught of Typhoon “Sendong” which resulted to millions worth of properties damage and hundreds of deaths.
Sering said she even remembered being put under pressure to sign an endorsement to give land titles of Isla de Oro when she was still Undersecretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
“I was undersecretary then of DENR when I was actually pressured to sign an endorsement giving title to an area in Isla de Oro just because the land was already elevated enough, it’s already possible to build houses on it,” Sering said.
However, she refused to sign it because there was a map which showed that the area is a natural passage of the river.
‘Twin Phoenix’
Sering said the Moa was the first agreement entered by the Commission with other civic organizations.
“Women and children are the most vulnerable during disaster and I am happy to have partnered with a women’s group here. We don’t want another Sendong in Cagayan de Oro and this agreement will somehow help us in monitoring the project titled Twin Phoenix,” she said.
Twin Phoenix, is a project that will provide the city a better resolution of maps to be able to identify certain areas that are no longer fit for development and areas that can still be developed and utilized for business growth.
She added that the project needs the participation of the local government units (LGUs) and other sectors.
“We know that LGU terms only serve for three years and so we need help from civic groups to sustain the initiative and the project,” Sering said.
“Climate Change is not about yesterday but is about what will happen in the future. We don’t want LGUs to create a three-year-plan only, but long enough that can withstand not only their term but the future generations as well,” she added.
She said her office saw the land use plans of the LGUs and “all of them were based on what happened yesterday.”
The P69 million project will be implemented for two years, commencing in April 2012 until June 2014.
The project, Sering said has already started in Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Compostela Valley among other areas.
Management and implementation of the project will be spearheaded by the Climate Change Commission.
The amount will be used to assess the disaster vulnerabilities of the two cities and the municipalities surrounding the Cagayan de Oro and Mandulog river basins to geological, meteorological and met-induced hazards due to climate change.
It will also help determine the wind and water level during extreme weather events.
The government’s counterpart of the project will be about P4M.
Ana de la Fuente, Zonta secretary, said their group will assist in all the activities of CCC here in Cagayan de Oro.
Zonta will help establish an office for CCC in the city and will initiate discussions on climate change especially in the schools and for the youth sector.
She said Zonta is organizing a Greenergy summit for the youth in August here in the city.