In Dagupan, good governance is key

Looking back, the bustling coastal city of Dagupan in Pangasinan province was literally reduced to rubble after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck a wide area in Luzon in 1990.

About 90 percent of the buildings were damaged. Some of them tilted and sank because of liquefaction. The roads cracked and a bridge collapsed. There was no potable water supply and power was down for many days.

Seven people died in a stampede in a moviehouse. Scores were hurt.

But for the strewn bodies, the sight was comparable to Tacloban City after storm surges whipped up by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” flattened it in November last year.

Barely two years after the earthquake, Dagupan was back on its feet as Ilocos region’s premier city.

Leadership

Good leadership brought Dagupan back to life, said Romeo Rosario, the city’s planning and development officer in 1990.

“The leadership was able to rally the people behind so that it took us no less than a year to put back into operation all the lifelines, enabling us to bring back business and the confidence of the community in so short period of time,” he said.

He said that in the days that followed after the quake, residents had no one to rely on except themselves as a community. “We were able to show immediately after the earthquake that the city government was there and that the community was there as well to support the government,” he said.

Dagupan then had the late Liberato Reyna Sr. as mayor and former Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. as vice mayor.

Rosario said the businessmen opened their stores 24 hours a day to sell basic commodities, such as rice, canned goods and milk. “There was no price manipulation and hoarding on basic commodities because everybody was a victim and everybody was ready to help,” he said.

Patience

Rosario said that if there is something that victims in calamity-hit areas could learn from Dagupan’s experience, it is patience.

“There was always that urge for us to, as much as possible, bring back the services of the government right there and then. But I think, one basic factor that was needed is a little bit of patience,” he said.

“In any undertaking, especially in a widespread disaster, there are things that the government cannot do at once and we have to wait,” he added.

In Dagupan, the fallen bridge, the damaged roads and the public market were built after then Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. sponsored a bill seeking the appropriation of P10 billion for the rehabilitation of devastated areas in Luzon. The city got at least P1 billion from the fund.

In the ensuing years, more infrastructure projects were implemented, including two bypass roads that eased the city’s traffic jams.