ILOILO City – In partnership with various stakeholders, the city government is stepping up its disaster resilience initiatives through technology-based equipment and programs.
Mayor Jerry Treñas recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) of Taiwan, National Resilience Council (NRC), and Manila Observatory on improving regional resilience against natural hazards.
The city also had agreements on the Smart Sensor Network with NRC, NCDR, Manila Observatory, Central Philippine University (CPU), John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University (JBLFMU), University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV), West Visayas State University (WVSU), Alliance Global Group, Megaworld Iloilo, and SM City Iloilo.
The two agreements support the three-year Resilient Local Government Systems Program, of NRC, said President Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga.
This southern city was chosen by NRC to pilot a cloud-based integrated information system as a decision-support tool. A memorandum of agreement for this was signed October this year.
Under this program, Iloilo City received 25 sets of new earthquake P-alert and early warning instruments and rain gauges from the NCDR. These instruments will be installed inside the campuses of partner universities and barangays and connected to servers in the city government, the Manila Observatory and NCDR.
“We are very happy and excited to work with the private sector and the academe…for Iloilo’s ability to face disasters,” said Treñas.
For her part, Loyzaga said, “What we’re trying to do is provide a system of environment monitoring, a way to gather data both for climate, weather and earthquake events. This science and technology component feeds into the decision-making of the leadership of the city in the journey to resilience.”
NCDR Taiwan director Dr. Hongey Chen said they have chosen Iloilo City as recipient of the project because, like Taiwan, it also has its share of disasters. Taiwan hopes to share its experience with Iloilo City in reducing disasters, he stressed.
“In Taiwan, every year we get four to seven typhoons, heavy rainfall and a lot of disasters. We set up a disaster information system. We hope to share our experience to this city,” said Chen./PN
