Paglaum Fund project to start by June

ILOILO CITY – The city’s rehabilitation project to be funded from the government’s Paglaum Fund is expected to commence by June 2009 by dredging the Dungon Creek up to Magsaysay Village spanning from Mandurriao to La Paz districts.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has programmed the dredging project with some P50 million funding share from the downscaled P8 billion typhoon-affected rehabilitation fund for Western Visayas.

City Mayor Jerry P. Treñas, however, said some 615 families living along the Dungon Creek up to Magsaysay village will be affected and most of them are soon to be relocated at the San Isidro relocation site in Jaro district.

Treñas said that Dungon Creek is a major waterway for inland surface water and squatter families and development expansion of housing subdivisions in the area have constricted the flow of water that caused a major flood in June 2008 during the devastation of Typhoon Frank.

The dredging is expected to open up the waterway and provide smooth flow of rainwater and those coming from central Panay to an exit at the Iloilo River.

By Lydia C. Pendon