City to hold environmental summit

The city government is targeting a large audience of at least 500 to ensure the success of the Environmental Summit it plans to hold on June 27.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong last May 17 directed the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO) under CEPM Officer Rhenan Diwas to spearhead the conduct of the summit to gather inputs on to address the critical issues affecting the city’s environment.

The inputs will further guide the city government in its mission to prevent the city from further hurtling towards urban decay.

He asked that participants come from the cross section of the Baguio City community to make for a fruitful summit. 

City Planning and Development Coordinator Donna Tabangin said preparations are ongoing to ensure that all sectors will be aptly and amply represented.

Preparations are now ongoing to finalize the invitations, program, topics and speakers.

The mayor said his second term as city executive will be focused on implementing the strategic solutions planned during his first term to address problems besetting the city including the deterioration of the environment resulting in ecological imbalance.

A 2019 study of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) found the city had already breached its carrying capacity or “the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation.”

The mayor said it is crucial that the city implement reforms to slow down if not reverse urban decay defined as “a process in which a previously functioning city, or city area, falls into disrepair and disuse whose common indications are abandoned buildings and empty plots, high unemployment levels, high crime rates, and an urban landscape that is generally decrepit and desolate.” – Aileen P. Refuerzo