DAGUPAN City has been chosen one among five pilot cities in Asia for the Program for Hydro-Meteorological Risk Mitigation in Secondary Cities in Asia (PROMISE) under the United States Agency for International Development.

Last Tuesday, Mayor Benjamin Lim and Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez signed a memorandum of understanding with Laura Coughlyn, mission disaster relief officer of USAID.

Other signatories included Director Edgar Nigel Lontoc of the Office of Civil Defense, Mrs. Eufemia Andaya of the Center for Disaster Preparedness and Atty. Gil Fernando Cruz, executive director of the League of Cities in the Philippines.

Dagupan is the only city in the Philippines included in the program. The others are Chittagong in Bangladesh, Hyderabad in Pakistan, Kalutara in Sri Lanka and Da Nang in Vietnam.

As one of five cities chosen pilot areas for PROMISE, Dagupan will receive U.S. $100,000 in a span of two years starting this year to be used in formulating program and strategies in participatory risk assessment and preparedness/mitigation planning, implementation of preparedness and mitigation measures, training and public awareness, mainstreaming disaster risk management in city governance and operational support.

Aside from the USAID, Dagupan’s partners in implementing PROMISE are the Center of Asian Preparedness, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, League of Cities of the Philippines, Office of Civil Defense and Philippine Disaster Management Forum.

The project goal of PROMISE is to reduce the vulnerability of urban communities through enhanced preparedness and mitigation of hydro-meteorological disasters like flood and typhoons.
Lim said the program is a big boon to Dagupan City because of frequent floods it experiences every rainy season. The city is only a few feet above sea level.

The frequent floods in Dagupan, which is a bane to its 150,000 population, is often aggravated by the release of water from the San Roque multi-purpose dam in eastern Pangasinan down the Agno river which spills over to various rivers emptying into the Lingayen Gulf.