Today, three dredging machines of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), one brand new and just imported from Finland, are simultaneously dredging all heavily silted rivers in Dagupan that will last for one year with the city shouldering only one month cost of fuel of the machines and in transporting the brand new machine from a pier in Manila to Dagupan where it was used for the first time.
All the remaining fuel expenses will be shouldered by DPWH per a memorandum of agreement signed by the agency’s flood control director and Mayor Belen Fernandez of Dagupan City, an agreement that speaks well of the strong determination of the current administration in helping Local Government Units overcome their flood problems
DPWH is also set to start the construction of the gabion-type of river protection along barangays crisscrossed by the Pantal River whose flooding was aggravated when water from adjacent Calasiao town was diverted partly to Dagupan, making these villages more vulnerable to floods.
This kind of river protection was introduced in flood-prone Barangay Pantal some weeks after the 2013 election at the initiative of Congresswoman De Venecia and the newly elected Mayor Belen Fernandez,who served as acting mayor beginning May 16.
De Venecia was also instrumental in causing the elevation of A. B. Fernandez Avenue and in improving its drainage systems as it used to be flooded often every rise of tidal water of the shallow Pantal River during rainy days.
[mappress]
Press Release, July 21, 2014