It’s almost a year now after Monkayo Mayor Ramil Gentugaya in Compostela Valley first showed on his Facebook a drone’s video shot showing the extent of flooding of his municipality after days of continuous heavy rains. The video post was last January 19, and the drone’s brand is DJI Phantom 4 Pro and is owned by the mayor.
In that drone video shot, the floodwaters overflowing Agusan River and submerging parts of Monkayo poblacion were captured on transit from drone’s location at sky high above, and it gave the mayor a big picture of the extent of flooding in his town and hence ideas on what to do to effectively address the situation.
At that time, flooding also hit the other Compostela Valley towns like Nabunturan, Compostela and New Bataan and in the areas of Davao del Norte like Carmen, Kapalong , Panabo and Tagum cities following long continuous rains and the consequent rising and overflowing of the big Bingcungan and Libuganon rivers.
Apparently, it was only Mayor Gentugaya who knew in fast real time how which parts of his municipalities that should be prioritized and responded first by his disaster management council and multi responders.
This reporter first thought that the mayor’s use of drone was just an exciting, high-tech hobby of him when he himself remotely piloted his drone early this year and captured good stunning aerial shots on the wide sprawl of his municipality and its residential and natural formations and landmarks.
Among many posted on Facebook, the Monkayo drones have good shots over St. Ignatius Parish, MCES grounds and Kalaw bridge.
His drone shot on Feb. 16, 2017 showed a stunning aerial view of the Agusan River, its tributaries and riverside peripheries of vast low-lying areas traversing the Barangays Poblacion, Baylo and San Jose.
Having known the geographical form of Agusan River that drains to the Butuan coast, Mayor Gentugaya then labeled as a “Bituka ng Manok” the portion of the Agusan River near town. He posted the portion had been “dredged and widened by the provincial government in cooperation with the local government to avoid massive flooding in cases where there are weather disturbance and heavy downpour.”
Through the use of drone, the mayor has been personally monitoring the water level of the Agusan River during continuous heavy rains and it allows him to know the affected areas of the downpour or flooding.
He said: “this is a major breakthrough in monitoring most especially in times of disasters affecting the municipality, a breakthrough in utilizing available means of the latest technologies.”
Then his next drone’s video shots were taken at close-range to the infrastructure projects he was developing, like the Monkayo Dome, which is now fast being completed to claim being the biggest locally funded by sportsdome in the region.
Morever, the drone, because it can be flown close to the projects, can naturally allow the mayor to know even the manpower who are working and idle during construction work hours on the field.
The mayor posted sometime that the use of drone is a breakthrough to responsive local governance, from which comes his popular hashtag #ResponsiveLocalGovernance in his social media posts or by the posts of the official Facebook of the Local Government of Monkayo.
From his lessons learned out of his beneficial using of drones, last Sept. 18 he gave drones to the Philippine National Police Monkayo Police Station headed by PSupt. Jerry H. Abrogina, 25th Infantry Battalion headed by Lt. Col. Ismael P. Mandanas, Jr., Commanding Officer and the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office headed by Ms. Alicia C. Cabunoc, LDRRMO IV, and last Sept. 28 to the Compostela Valley Provincial Police Office led by Provincial Director PSSupt. Marvin Manuel Pepino.
The use of drone as exemplified by Mayor Gentugaya proves to one cutting-edge monitoring technology, a must-buy now for local governments and their officials. Indeed, he’s trailblazing for responsive local governance.- Cha Monforte, Correspondent
