The University of the Philippines (UP) Resilience Institute (UP RI) – Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) Center participated in the 1st Quarter Quezon City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (QCDRRM) Full Council Meeting on March 5, 2024, Tuesday, at the 15th Floor, Executive Lounge of the High Rise Building in Quezon City Hall Compound, QC. This meeting was organized by the QCDRRM Office where UPRI presented the outputs of the recently concluded Quezon City Drainage Master Plan (QC DMP) project during the presentation of the Non-LDRRMC Member Agencies. QCDRRMO, the principal office responsible for the formulation of the DMP, along with the rest of the relevant offices of the technical working group (TWG) of the project, were present. The order of business was facilitated by the Hon. Mayor Josefina ‘Joy’ Belmonte, Mr. Michael Alimurung, City Administrator, Mr. Alberto Kimpo, Assistant City Administrator for Operations of the Office of City Administrator (OCA), and EnP. Ma. Bianca Perez, Head of the QCDRRMO.
During the presentation, Ms. Patricia Anne Delmendo highlighted the different aspects of the two-year project that can be utilized in managing the flooding situation of the city and can serve as the long-term framework for flood management projects by the local government. The audiovisual presentation, one of the project outputs that will be used to communicate with stakeholders, was shown and gathered positive responses from the Mayor and the rest of the audience.
Dr. Alfredo Mahar Lagmay, Team Leader of the QCDMP Project and Executive Director of UPRI praised the local government of QC for its decision to put to use UP RI’s expertise in its plans on how to respond to different disaster risks and challenges brought by climate change. According to him, this is an impressive display of the QC government being at the helm in upholding its vision to uplift the affected citizens’ flooding conditions. Mayor Joy and the rest of the LDRRMC Member Agencies were also extremely gratified when Dr. Lagmay announced that QC is the first to have a concrete DMP that employed modern simulation and modeling tools, more effective methodologies, and in-depth analyses in terms of integrating surface inundation data and drainage data. He is looking forward to producing similar projects with other cities and municipalities, especially in Metro Manila and other significant national agencies.
Mayor Joy Belmonte closed this segment of UP RI’s presentation by emphasizing the importance of properly communicating the DMP project’s functions and how the stakeholders could benefit from it and it should be a collective effort from all member offices of the TWG. She mentioned that it is also imperative not only to have clear communications with the stakeholders but also with the national agencies, implementing units, and decision-makers who may have similar flooding management projects to avoid overlapping or redundancy of the projects or worse, become counter-productive to the DMP. The QC government made known its satisfaction and approval of the project output.
