Baguio tourism up; infra projects better

 

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY -- Hopes are up for the city’s tourism industry to make some recovery as the city moved to reopen tourist registration beginning Oct. 25 after a two-month slump caused by the Delta variant-driven spike in Covid-19 cases.
But the city is treading with caution to ensure that the health and safety of residents will not be compromised especially with the continuing threat of the Delta variant.
    Mayor Benjamin Magalong said that while the city was able to bring the cases down affording some leeway to ease up on restrictions, it will continue to do so “slowly, safely and surely” through the imposition of qualifications and requirements for leisure travelers.
    He said the tourist registration will be limited to fully vaccinated individuals and negative-tested minor family member who will still be subjected to requirements like pre-approved registration with the online enlistment platform visita.baguio.gov.ph, among others before they will be allowed entry.
    Monitoring for strict compliance to minimum public health standards (MPHS), such as the proper wearing of face mask and shield, social distancing and frequent hand sanitizing will also be imposed  on both tourists and establishments as part of safety measures.
    "Hopefully our reopening will spur economic activity in our city particularly our tourism industry which was heavily impacted for the past two months because of the restrictions that we imposed to manage the cases," Magalong told reporters Oct. 25.
    He expressed hopes that the downtrend in cases will continue to provide both respite for the city's health care system and recovery window for the economic sector.
"    It has not been easy but as we have been doing since the pandemic started, we will continue to strike a balance between managing our cases and giving premium to the health and safety of our constituents on the one hand and keeping our economy afloat and sustaining the people's livelihood on the other," he said.
    The mayor said the city recognizes the efforts of its health workers and is considering their plight.
    "They needed rest from the recent surge that is why we did not reopen too early and first made sure that the decrease in cases is sustained in the past two weeks para makapagpahinga naman ang mga health workers natin,” he said.
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Two years after implementing the inspection-first and no-quality-no-payment rule for city-funded projects, City Administrator Bonifacio Dela Peña reported a dramatic improvement in the quality of civic works and infrastructure projects being undertaken in the city.
    During the management committee meeting Oct. 25, Dela Peña said the recent routine final inspections they had conducted in the past months with Mayor Benjamin Magalong showed vast upgrade in the workmanship of the projects which proves that contractors have taken seriously the city's requirement to strictly comply with the project specifications to deliver only quality outputs.
    Dela Peña said their most recent inspection last Oct. 22 had them checking out a total of 28 projects located in different parts of the city and all of these got a passing mark.
    "It was tiring but fulfilling for the team led by our mayor.  The transformation of the quality of workmanship from not-so-good to excellent is really amazing," he said recalling their past encounters with poorly executed and substandard projects when they were just starting.
    He said that when inspections started as a new city procedure, a lot of projects received failing marks for non-compliance with the specifications.
    These projects were not accepted and instead, the contractors were ordered to rectify the errors and supply the deficiencies.
    He said the desired change in mindset as advocated by the mayor was not achieved overnight but it was worth all the effort of the city through the offices of the City Engineering under City Engr. Edgar Victorio Olpindo, City Environment and Parks and Management Office under Atty. Rhenan Diwas and the City Buildings and Architecture Office under Arch. Johnny Degay in collaboration with the Dept. Public Works and Highways regional office and city district engineering office.
    The final inspection routine began on Oct. 30, 2019 as part of protocol to ensure quality of the projects before accepting and issuing payments to contractors. -