Bannering the call “Bangon Iloilo. Masarangan ta ni (Rise Iloilo. We can overcome this), the website (www.bangoniloilo.com), seeks to provide contributors and prospective funding organizations with access to information related to the affected areas and the need for rehabilitation.

The website was developed by the Canadian Urban Institute with fund assistance from the Canadian International Development Agency. CUI developed a similar website, www.projectsunrise.org, at the height of the Petron oil spill in Guimaras in August 2006.

Bangon Iloilo is a comprehensive investment and promotion campaign designed to help the flood victims recover in terms of housing, access to basic services such as water, health and education, and livelihood and income, according to the CUI. It also aims to maximize rehabilitation efforts to help victims improve their livelihood.

The campaign will be managed by the Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Economic Development Council and the CUI.

CUI regional manager Francis Gentoral said the website is important to provide donor agencies and funding organizations access to official damage reports, news stories, project opportunities, and a list of implementing partners.

“While immediate relief is of the utmost importance in the region, rehabilitation and redevelopment must be planned for the long term,” Gentoral said in a statement.

The website has links to photos of the tragedy and to new accounts after “Frank” ravaged Western Visayas, with Iloilo and Aklan the hardest hit areas.

Gentoral said the website would also provide a forum for local governments and community organizations to reach out to funding partners by providing information on their specific needs for rehabilitation.

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas, in an open letter posted at the site, appealed for support for the typhoon victims.

“We are in dire need of medicines to cure water-borne diseases and influenza, vaccines for leptospirosis and tetanus, potable water, clothes, blankets, mats, household utensils, soap and food,” the mayor said.

“Our profound gratitude for whatever assistance you may extend and we ask for your continued prayers as we go through this very trying time in our lives,” he said.

At least 145 of the city’s 180 barangays were affected by flooding and more than half of the 418,000 residents. Twenty four died and at least 169 were injured in what is considered the worst flooding in this city and Western Visayas.

At the height of the typhoon, thousands of residents left their homes or climbed on rooftops or trees to escape rampaging flood waters.

The flooding destroyed property and infrastructure running into hundreds of millions of pesos. Aside from Iloilo City, the typhoon also ravaged the neighboring towns of Pavia, Sta.Barbara, Leganes and San Miguel.

The Bangon Iloilo program seeks to institute economic and environmental rehabilitation of at least 241 affected barangays in Iloilo City and the towns of Leganes, Oton, Pavia, San Miguel and Santa Barbara through livelihood activities that support the restoration of the environment.

“The calamity brought back to zero everything that Iloilo and its people built in the last decade. But while it has fallen, it is predestined to rise again and rebuild what has been lost. While relief assistance poured down immediately after floodwaters have subsided, rehabilitation becomes a great challenge,” CUI said in the website.

Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Visayan Daily Star

A few hours later, Aracan gives pointers as they rappel down a 95-foot cliff overlooking the pristine beaches of Guimaras Island.

Aracan is not an expert mountain biker or rappeller although he has undergone training as a guide for adventure sports. On most days, he is on a tricycle ferrying passengers from the town proper of Nueva Valencia to the villages.

But like other residents of Sitio Guisi in Barangay Dolores, he is getting much needed extra income from a heritage tourist site recently launched by the Department of Tourism. He earns P250 to P350 for a day’s work as a tour guide of the community-based Guisi Discovery Quest – bigger than the average P150 he gets from his regular job.

Making ends meet

“Tourists help us make ends meet and more of us will be benefited if there are more guests,” he said.

Last year, the DOT, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) designed a tourism package that would help provide islanders an alternative source of income while recovering from the disaster that swept Guimaras in August 2006. Nueva Valencia was the hardest hit among five towns by the oil spill that ruined the livelihood of coastal residents and triggered a slump in tourism.

Tourism Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano, who led the launching of the tour package last month, said the vulnerability of Guimaras was seen during the oil spill because it depended highly on fishing. “Tourism is a natural alternative for Guimaras because of its natural resources,” he said.

Expansion

The Guisi Discovery Quest was an expansion of the community-based heritage tourism project initiated by the CUI for the community in 2003. The project, managed by the Barangay Dolores Tourism Council (BDTC), is centered on the rich historical heritage of Sitio Guisi.

According to folklore, the sub-village derived its name (Hiligaynon for “torn apart”) from the sails of vintas used by Bornean datus, which were ripped by strong winds as they passed the coast in the 13th century.

Guisi is rich in cultural traditions. Residents have preserved the music, dances and rituals brought to their shores by the first settlers in the 1860s.

It also hosts the ruins of an 18th-century lighthouse built on top of a hill by the Spanish colonial government in 1896. Known as Faro de Punta Luzaran, the lighthouse had served as a navigational aid to fishermen and sailors in the Panay Gulf.

Durano said the DOT would finance the restoration of the old lighthouse as a viewing den, although a new lighthouse has been built beside it.

From the facility, tourists can trek down to the Basyaw Cove for boating or snorkeling. They can also go on a mangrove tour, mountain biking to Tagsing Cave or rappelling.

The eight-hour tour, costing P999 per person, includes use of mountain bikes, snorkeling and rappelling equipment, guide services and boating, as well as lunch and two snacks of native food prepared by the villagers.

All guides, kitchen staff and maintenance crew are local residents who attended seminars for tourism front-liners, workshops for food preparation and handling, and courses on rappelling, mountain biking and snorkeling.

The DOT and UNDP donated around P995,600 for the training sessions and equipment for mountain biking, rappelling and snorkeling.

More earnings

The tour package has started bringing more income to the villagers, mostly fishermen and charcoal makers earning only P70 per day. They also earn from selling and preparing food for guests, according to Henrietta Dulla, president of the BDTC.

Eco-tourism and community-based tourist destinations show a lot of promise, Durano said. These sites, like the Guisi Discovery Quest and whale shark watching in Donsol, are in demand by big-spending tourists from developed countries, he said.

“Travelers coming from developed countries are more and more conscious of their environmental footprints. It makes them feel good that by being travelers, they’re also contributing to ecological conservation and community preservation and development,” Durano said.

Community model

The greater consciousness among travelers on the environment and the preservation of community life, he said, “is where global tourism is heading.”

Kyo Naka, UNDP deputy resident representative, said he hoped the experience of Guisi villagers would become a model for other communities on how they can turn around the impact of disasters like the oil spill.

While the effects of the disaster lingers, residents hope that things will soon turn around. Tourist arrivals in Guimaras still declined last year at 156,423, lower than 181,915 in 2005 and 172,985 in 2006, according to data from the provincial tourism office. The trend continued in the first two months of this year.

But in March, the number jumped to 30,038, more than double the 13,999 reported in 2006 and 13,568 in 2007.

This is a sign that “opportunity is the other side of the same coin of crisis,” Durano said.

Nestor Burgos Jr., Philippine Daily Inquirer

Led by MIGEDC chair Jerry Treñas, mayor of Iloilo City, and co-chair Gov. Felipe Nava of Guimaras, the chief executives will visit the port city of Adelaide in southern Australia, with a brief stop at Melbourne to meet the Ilonggo community there.

The contingent includes Mayors Vicente Flores of Oton, Gregorio Villarico of San Miguel and Samuel Gumarin of Buenavista, Guimaras, also the chair of the League of Municipalities of Guimaras, and Regional Director Evelyn Trompeta of the Department of Interior and Local Government.

The learning exchange is part of the capacity building component of the Urban Partnerships Program (UPP) Philippines, a program implemented by Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

UPP Philippines, which supports MIGEDC in developing model approaches in enhancing urban governance and the public realm of cities as a contribution to urban sustainability and poverty reduction, builds on the gains of a previous partnership with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).

This partnership was carried out in the implementation of the Local Governance Development Program (LGDP) which was implemented in the MIGEDC area by the Australian group Coffey International Development in association with CUI.

The study tour was organized to expose MIGEDC chief executives to working partnership models in Australia.

CUI, through its previous program Canada-Philippines Partnership Program for Good Urban Governance (CPPPGUG), had organized similar study tours in Canada, Malaysia and Singapore for MIGEDC chief executives and key personnel.

The learning exchange also hopes to introduce to the chief executives improved policies, processes and structures as applicable to strengthen the working relationship of MIGEDC and its partners in delivering effective services especially for the poor.

The chief executives are expected to learn from the following:

Westwood Project. Westwood is Australia’s largest urban renewal project, located 7-9km north-west of the Adelaide Central Business District in the suburbs of Ferryden Park, Angle Park, Athol Park, Mansfield Park and Woodville Gardens.

The $600 million project commenced in 1999, and is a joint venture between international developer Urban Pacific Limited and the Department of Families and Communities (Housing SA) in conjunction with the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and City of Charles Sturt.

Adelaide’s Transport Planning Division. Deemed as a good stop for transport planning, the chief executives are expected to gain high quality and timely specialist advice on relevant strategies, policies, issues and development in establishing and maintaining partnerships with government agencies, peak groups and other stakeholders to achieve strategic transport outcomes.

Adelaide City Economic Development Department. Adelaide has an Economic Development department, which functions similarly to the Provincial Economic Development Office (PEDO) of Guimaras. Its focus on bringing students and workers to the city is considered as an interesting match for MIGEDC because of the number of universities. They also have a lot of enterprise support programs such as Enterprise Adelaide, the Business Charter, and a one-stop shop.

State Government of South Australia Planning Agency. The participants are also expected learn about city-region interaction within planning from this agency, which has information about South Australia’s planning and development system and associated services, including the building rules, processes for making development applications and assessments.

Adelaide Festival Corporation. This body conducts in Adelaide and other parts of the State the multifaceted arts event that is known as the Adelaide Festival of Arts, and develops it as an event of international standing and excellence.

Port Adelaide Waterfront Redevelopment. The $1.2 billion Port Adelaide Waterfront Redevelopment is the largest urban development project being undertaken in South Australia over the next decade. It involves the preparation of the former industrial harbor land so it can be redeveloped and transformed by Newport Quays, a private consortium, into a residential and tourism destination.

Glen Murray is well known for his vision and efforts to build diverse and dynamic urban centres. He was a former mayor of the City of Winnipeg and was the first Chair of the Big City Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. While in that role, he led the campaign for new fiscal arrangements for municipalities – the New Deal for Cities. He has been active in the green municipal environmental movement and currently chairs the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy.

Glen held the position of Research Associate for the Centre for Urban and Community Studies and was a Visiting Scholar & Urban Policy Coordinator at the University of Toronto. He is active on several community boards and advisory bodies. Glen comes to the CUI from AuthentiCity, the urban policy practice of Navigator Ltd., and will continue, for a period of time, as a senior advisor to the firm on urban policy matters.

“We are at a turning point in human history”, reflects Glen Murray. “For the first time the majority of the world’s population live in cities. Issues affecting the capacity, design, sustainability and functioning of urban areas are more important than ever. How cities work will either enable or undermine humanity’s ability to meet the unprecedented environmental, economic, governance and cultural challenges that require us to rethink the fundamentals of the way we make our home on this planet. The CUI is central to Canada’s capacity for innovation and to realizing the opportunities of this new age.”

“The CUI brings together partners from the non-profit, public and private sectors to address issues of the urban realm. Glen will build on this and will strengthen our influence and impact as the preeminent urban think tank in Canada,” said Bob Onyschuk.

“I look forward to working with the talented team of professionals at CUI and I am honoured to build on the extraordinary legacy of David Crombie and the blue ribbon Board of Directors,” commented Glen Murray.