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4.01.01 The Use of GIS in the Municipality of Laurel Laurel is a 4th class municipality bounded on the north by the bustling city of Tagaytay, and has Taal Lake on its east side. It has a population of about 31,000 (2004) distributed in 16 rural and 5 urban barangays and occupying about 7,129 hectares of fertile soil in the Province of Batangas. Agricultural and fishery production are the leading sources of income for the majority of its residents. The propagation of tilapia fingerlings in ponds has been considered as best alternative to agricultural crop production due to its bigger demand from the fish cage operators in Taal Lake. The road from Manila going to Laurel is lined with residential homes, subdivisions and small resorts, however, the municipality is proud of having its physical developments based on the carrying capacity principle of the area. Laurel started to use GIS in its planning activities in 2002, after the Planning and Coordination Office was involved in a training program conducted by NAMRIA. It represents the majority of Philippine LGUs in its rural profile with very limited economical resources, which are the main target users for the GIS Cookbook. During the period when HLURB assisted the LGU in developing its GIS the Mayor, Honorable John Benedict P. Panganiban, was a first term Local Chief Executive. He is a young law graduate, and he got his political training from his father who was the previous Mayor of the municipality. Mayor Panganiban also relied on the technical expertise of the Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator, (MPDC), Engr. Ciriaco B Calinisan. The Mayor has little background in GIS but he is familiar with maps and other information products, which originate from the GIS, such as, the Brief Profile of Laurel,

which has utilized data from the GIS, and the available Municipal Base Maps which are displayed on the walls of the Barangay Halls for easy reference.

The municipal councilors and LGU senior management have attended in February 2006, a Workshop to prepare an ExecutiveLegislative Agenda for Local Governance and Development, which is a Policy Statement and Business Plan for the strategic development of Laurel. This activity is promoted by Department of Interior and Local Government, and it facilitates the preparatory steps for the formulation of the CLUP Vision, Goals and Objectives of the municipality. The major challenges which the Mayor reports the LGU has to contend with are: Improvement of road conditions; Generation of jobs for the more than 30% of working age groups that are unemployed; Curbing the excessive proliferation of fish cages in Lake Taal; Advocating for the introduction of telephone landlines for cheaper communication fees and access to Internet.

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On the other hand the municipality Has no informal settlements; Has adequate school and health facilities; Has no illegal dumpsite because it has a significant recycling program. MPDC Calinisan returned from an overseas job in Saudi Arabia in 1988, and while waiting for another assignment abroad, he was approached by the Vice Mayor who asked him to take up the position as the MPDC on a temporary basis. At that time, there was little in terms of planning activities in the municipality, and there was just an out-ofscale and outdated municipal map on the office wall. Being a native of Laurel and wanting to help the Mayor, he accepted the job, and stayed on since then. The first CLUP, which was approved in 1995, took two years to prepare, with the assistance of the HLURB Regional Staff, since there was no MPDO staff then. The revision of the CLUP was done in 2001 with the UP School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) assisting them as a project of its students At the same time Laurel was included in a GIS training program implemented by NAMRIA. As a result, GIS was used in the CLUP revision.

The MPDC is assisted by two staff assistants namely: One clerk (Planning Officer 1) who has training in GIS; One statistician (Planning Officer 2). Another staff person, who was previously working with the MPDC but is now with the Engineering Office, also received GIS training. MPDC Calinisan reports that the situation in his office of having limited staff resources is the same in the majority of LGUs throughout the country. He considers GIS to be a very useful tool not only for land use planning but also for other sector offices in the LGU, with whom he has encouraged data sharing. Municipal Engineering Office is also using GIS and some other Offices, like the Education District Office, have shown interest. The limited provision of computers has so far constrained the introduction of data sharing. Provision of computer support is difficult for Laurel. Computer hardware has to be procured in Manila and there is very little competence in computer maintenance and repair in the municipality. Plotting of large scale maps derived from the GIS is not possible to do in Laurel. It cannot afford its have its own plotter and there is no urgent and continuous need for it. Instead, the MPDC occasionally goes to NAMRIA in Fort Bonifacio where he can be assisted. Mrs. Geraldine Canta is a Planning Officer of the MPDO who knows how to master basic operations in a GIS and is able to update and expand the municipal databases. She is assisted by a Statistician, who frequently uses the GPS to track the continuous need for spatial data information. The software being used for the GIS include Excel for the attribute data and ArcView 3 for the geodata.

In 2006, it has been decided to update the CLUP, and the next revision will be done with the use of the new HLURB Guidelines including the GIS Cookbook.

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Ms. Canta realizes that projections are confusing in the GIS and the text in the software help function is difficult to understand. She confirms that there is hardly any help is found in Laurel when there is a problem with the hardware.

It is also reported that the other offices in the LGU are getting interested in using the GIS but the expensive software is a constraint for these municipal units to use the technology. As for now she helps the other offices print maps and other information products from the GIS.

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