ANGELES CITY -- “Mayor Pamintuan, thank you for sharing very creative and inspiring solutions for our cities.”
Thus said APEC CEO Summit Chief Operating Officer Guillermo Luz, host of the “Building Better Cities: A Forum on Livable, Sustainable, Competitive Cities Mayors” held September 3 to 4 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu City.
The forum is part of the Third Senior Officials Meeting of the APEC Summit 2015.
Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan was a panelist in one of the sessions of the forum, where he was invited to share his plans on how to extract value from the city’s waste and garbage.
In the session, “Creating Values from Waste,” Pamintuan shared his plans to convert “waste to worth” in the city.
“After getting rid of the garbage in our materials recovery facility (MRF) in Pampang, we assigned our barangays to establish their own MRFs or cluster with nearby barangays to manage their wastes,” said Pamintuan.
“We are now closely working with Procter and Gamble to establish a Waste-to-Worth Eco Park, the first ever in the Philippines, that would convert the city’s garbage into useable energy,” he added.
During the second day, consolidated reports in urban development by the forum attendees were discussed. Topics include Health and Welfare, Sustainability, Culture & Society, Economics, and Connectivity.
In this session, Pamintuan shared his experience on building a better Angeles City, through his programs and projects that benefit the poor, which were mostly built through public-private partnerships.
The mayor was met with applause by the audience and speakers, praised for building strong partnerships with friends and the business sector which consequently led to the establishment of projects such as the City College of Angeles, the Renal Care Unit, and the soon-to-operate Cardiac Center and Chemotherapy Infusion Unit at the Ospital ning Angeles annex.
Pamintuan also shared his plans to set up free WiFi hotspots in Angeles City.
“With the help of Dennis Uy of Converge ICT, we will set up an initial nine WiFi hotspots in selected areas in the city,” said the mayor. “The project will then be funded by advertisements from my friends in the business sector.”
“This endeavor is also a first in the country, with Angeles City going ahead of the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) Free Wi-Fi Internet Access project, which will cover public places only,” he expressed, adding that the local government is now set to sign a memorandum of agreement with Uy later this week to get the project moving.
Thoroughly impressed, a group from PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore (PWC), asked Pamintuan for an interview and for him to join them for lunch.
The group talked to the mayor extensively about Angeles City and his experience as mayor both in the 90’s and today. They even said that they would visit the city, especially during this year’s Fiestang Kuliat celebration and the Tigtigan Terakan king Dalan in October.
PwC is an official partner of the APEC Summit Philippines 2015 organizers.
Throughout the year, the research team at PwC surveys industry leaders across the APEC countries on the challenges they have faced in the last year and their outlook for business development in the coming year.
They also participate in the forums and meetings of the summit. (AC-CIO)