Mandaue City to host 4th International River Summit

Mandaue City Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico Fortuna presides the 19th regular city council session on Wednesday (CDN PHOTO/DOMINIC YASAY).

Mandaue City will be hosting the convergence of at least 500 participants from all over the country and abroad for the fourth leg of the International River Summit in November 2018.

Spearheaded by the League of Cities in the Philippines (LCP), the International River Summit aims to gather all the major stakeholders in the protection and rehabilitation of all the rivers in the country.

Councilman Carmelino Del Mar Jr., chairman of the committee on environmental protection, will be drafting a resolution that will urge Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing to ink a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with LCP by next week.

“This event will help showcase Mandaue City and might help us gain funding for the rehabilitation of the Butuanon River,” Del Mar said.

The Cebu leg of the summit will be co-organized by the Mandaue City Government, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Central Visayas (DENR 7) and the Cebu River Basins Management Council.

The summit will be held at the Convention Center of J Center Mall on A.S. Fortuna Street, Mandaue City.

Maria Dianne Rallon, secretary of the Cebu River Basins Management Council, said that LCP was chosen as a principal host of the event in 2018 because of how strongly the province values its bodies of waters, not only rivers, as vital elements in the successful operations of all its industries.

“We want to urge Mandaue City to take care of its river,” Rallon said during her presentation of the event at the Mandaue City Council’s 19th regular session on Wednesday afternoon.

The funding of the event will be shared by the Mandaue City Government and DENR 7.