Last August 1, we were directed by our City Planning Department Head Sir Jose Roni Peñalosa with regards to conducting a survey on the warehouses located along the Iloilo River Estuary in the Brgys. Mulle Loney, Legazpi Dela Rama, Zamora Melliza and Monica Blumentritt, City Proper District. This is in coordination with the City’s plan for the redevelopment project and to check the status and viability of these areas with regards to its economic revenue.

Prior to the day of the survey, Ma’am Imelda Gerochi developed a survey form to acquire the data needed and can be provided by the warehouse owners and managers and discussed it with the team together with Ma’am Dolly for corrections and suggestions. A few irrelevant questions were deleted and other minor revisions were implemented. We then assigned the members of the 4 groups that will conduct the survey in each of the Barangays. I was with the Gaia and Ma’am Janis in the group and our Barangay assignment is at Legazpi Dela Rama.

Come the day of the survey, I already prepared an extra pad paper for the notes and also fully charged my smartphone and power bank for backup just in case. I have also added the app MapIt for noting the GPS location of each of the warehouses in the area. This will be later on tallied in an Excel sheet along with other relevant information. The weather was somewhat sunny that time so we brought along umbrellas for each person. We gathered at the office at around 8:30am and started the survey in the area around 9:00am. We immediately proceeded to the Barangay Hall of Legazpi Dela Rama to coordinate with their officials and asked for a guide to assist us.

Here are some of the pics I took during the course of the survey in the Barangay.

Click here to view the album.

There is an upcoming event this March for the urban planners in the country and it is at an international level. The University of the Philippines School of Urban and Regional Planning is holding an International Conference in Urban and Regional Planning with the theme “Planning towards Sustainability and Resilience” on March 14-15, 2018 at the Century Park Hotel Manila. The theme seeks to unite various research and planning initiatives that foster significant, incremental change towards sustainable growth. They have lined up the following sub-themes to be discussed in detail by educators, researchers and experts:

• Sustainable development
• Sustainable Transport
• Sustainable Infrastructure
• Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
• Disaster Risk Reduction and Management
• Policies and Institutions

I have already registered with their Early Bird promo rate at an amount of 4,500 together with Maam Janis. Their regular rate is at 6,000 per participant.

I am convinced that joining this event will expand my knowledge further on the mentioned topics but also help me with my subjects on my DURP course. This is also a point for my work as a Project Development Officer for the Iloilo City Planning and Development Office. I am hoping that the invite will be processed with the office as soon as possible so that my other officemates can also register and participate in this conference.

For those interested, you can contact their secretariat for the registration at:

Email: regcom.icurp2018@gmail.com
Website: http://conference.surp.upd.edu.ph/index.html