Tacurong City officials take LCP, UP special course on urban planning

Tacurong City officials and planning personnel participated in the first classroom sessions of the Special Course on Urban and Regional Planning for Cities or City SCURP on February 11-13, 2014 at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, UP Diliman, Quezon City.

The League of Cities of the Philippines selected Tacurong City as among five (5) pilot cities for this special course. Other pilot cities include: Muntinlupa City, Balanga City of Bataan, Candon City if Ilocos Sur, and Bogo City of Cebu.

On February 14, SCURP participants from 5 pilot cities visited Quezon City Planning and Development Coordinating Office. They were briefed on the city’s Planning Department structure, data gathering and management, and use of the Geographic Information System or GIS.

SCURP applies the blended learning approach: five (5) sessions will be devoted to classroom/face-to-face interactions; 10 days for distance learning; and about three (3) months worth of actual field work for data collection and analysis. SCURP will officially end on April 2014.

Tacurong’s participating team was led by Mayor Lina O. Montilla. “We are more than grateful to have been selected as a pilot city for this program. I am very willing to learn and get my hands on to new strategies to effectively manage the city,” said Montilla. Other participants from LGU-Tacurong include City Administrator Eduardo Nicolo, Councilor Psyche Sucaldito, City Local Government Operations Officer Alberto Sero Jr., City Engineer Catherine Leguro, City Budget Officer Nestor Nomananap, City Planning and Development Coordinator Jaime Cedullo, City Envirinment and Natural Resources Officer Nemesio Carigaba, Engr. Alfredo Zuriaga (NGO sector representative), and Amelia Bochorno and Elmer Felongco from CPDCO.

LCP, in partnership with the UP School of Urban and Regional Planning, offered SCURP to provide an accessible and practical capacity development program for city managers.  The course uses the Rationalized Local Planning System as its basic framework. This planning system contains four elements: Planning Structure, Planning Mandates, Planning Processes, and LGU Authority Levers.

This special course is part of LCP’s project entitled Developing Knowledge Management and Exchange System for City Managers. LCP is headed by its President, Quezon City Maor Herbert Bautista.  (LGU-Tacurong City Information)