Mayor Gomez tells the world Ormoc’s climate-smart agriculture and tourism

ORMOC CITY, Philippines — Mayor Richard Gomez, speaking before an international audience of leaders during the Smart Islands World Congress in Mallorca, Spain last month, said that Ormoc City is adopting climate-smart agriculture and developing sustainable tourism.

This has been the city’s response to make its residents climate change resilient, he said. It is unfortunate that despite Ormoc’s uniqueness as “naturally carbon free” — hence not contributing to carbon emissions — it is also identified as one of the most vulnerable cities to calamities resulting from climate change, he said.

“Ormoc is sitting on one of the richest geothermal reserves in the world, producing 700 MW of power and only using 40 MW, the remaining is exported to the rest of the country,” the mayor told the delegates.

Gomez was one of the plenary speakers in the World Congress, discussing on the topic “Smart islands: The way forward” where he shared how Ormoc has, time and time again, rose up from calamities.

Gomez’s co-plenary speakers were Miguel Angel Moratinos, former foreign minister of Spain; Puerto Rico’s Secretary of State Luis Gerardo Rivera Marin, and Pastor Micha Ondo Bile, former foreign minister of Equatorial Guinea.

The mayor emphasized to the Congress that, during his leadership, he has been strengthening disaster preparedness to go hand in hand with climate change mitigation measures.

Ormoc has formed its resiliency council, Gomez said. Even before the creation of the council was a national policy, Ormoc already has “independently developed its own resiliency and disaster preparedness program,” he said.

“In fact, other cities and provinces look to us as a model in this field,” and that Ormoc has a well-trained disaster response team of 45 people, which “expands to 1,500 when we include the police, coast guard, boys scouts and volunteers,” said the mayor.

However, he said that “what we really need to systematically protect our communities are climate resilient infrastructures” and programs that would help majority of its residents to adapt to climate change. He said that Ormoc is largely agricultural and, as it is also beside the bay, also has lots of fishermen.

Hence, he is adopting strategies to make agriculture “climate-smart” and also develop sustainable tourism, an industry that is all inclusive. To do this, Gomez said he has rolled out an extensive educational and training program for farmers about climate change. The farmers are also being helped to cultivate climate resilient crops.

The mayor also announced that Ormoc grows the “best tasting pineapple” in the world. He is also positioning the city to become the Jackfruit Capital of the Philippines, and developing high valued products like honey and chocolate.

“Part of our overall economic development plan is to forward integrate, meaning, create facilities that will increase the product values of our produce. So, food processing within the city will allow us to export our goods at higher values. And this will dramatically improve the city’s economy,” Gomez bared to the international event.

As for developing sustainable tourism, a master plan is already being developed in Ormoc City, Gomez added.