South Cotabato sets sights on Palawan's environmental best practices

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=2&rid=926111
• Monday, September 26, 2016

(PNA), JMC/AVE

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Sept. 26 (PNA) -- The provincial government of South Cotabato is planning to adopt the "best practices" of Palawan province and Puerto Princesa City to enhance the implementation of its environmental policies and programs.

The local government sent a team to Palawan last week for a capability-building and study mission on the area's clean and green initiatives.

Elbe Balucanag, senior environment management specialist of the Provincial Environment Management Office (PEMO), said Monday the study mission mainly focused on the innovative environmental strategies and practices of the two local government units (LGUs).

She specifically cited the clean and green programs and projects, and the mechanics, guidelines and criteria of the annual competition for Palawan LGUs.

"We looked into some of the best practices that they have been implementing for replication here in the province," said Balucanag, who led the study mission, which was hosted by the Palawan and Puerto Princesa LGUs from Sept. 19-23.

The team was composed of the nine evaluators of the province's annual search for the cleanest and greenest LGUs.

Balucanag said they chose Palawan as site for the study mission being a model in the country in terms of environmental practices.

Palawan and Puerto Princesa City had received numerous awards these past years from the government and the private sector for its clean and green initiatives.

She said the team visited various physical facilities such as public markets, slaughterhouses, municipal nurseries, central material recovery facilities, plazas, parks, public transport terminals and sanitary landfills.

They conducted a benchmarking activity at Puerto Princesa City's sanitary landfill as well as its cleanliness and beautification program for public plazas, she said.

The landfill, which is located in Barangay Sta. Monica, sits on a 32-hectare property and handles around 100 tons of residual wastes daily.

"We visited watershed areas and related sites that are covered by programs similar to what we have in the province and benchmarked their best practices to determine if they could be integrated into our existing environment programs," Balucanag said.

The team made a stop at the world famous subterranean river in Puerto Princesa City and studied the conservation and sustainability initiatives being implemented for the world heritage site, she said.

In South Cotabato, T’boli town has a similar attraction in the Bakngeb underground river-cave.