The River Basin Control Office conducted the Hands-On Training Web-Based River Basin Integrated Information System (RBIIMS) Cum Workshop on Policy Development for River Basin Management on November 6-9, 2018 at Ace Hotel, Pasig City. Regional River Basin Focal Persons, DENR-PPS, DENR-KISS-ISD and PEMSEA staff participated the said 4-day activity with the aim to test the initial program of web-based RBIIMS as well as draft policy for the Adoption of the Integrated River Basin Management and Development (IRBMD) Master Plan and the Harmonization of Roles of the River Basin Council, Watershed Management Council, WQMA and PAMB within the river basins.
Executive Director Antonio M. Daño welcomed the participants and explained the Importance of the workshop which aims to formulate a policy that would harmonize the different organizations in matters pertaining to river basin management for a more effective management and synchronized implementation of programs and projects. Director Daño further stated that he expects active participation among participants in order to achieve the list of expected outputs.
Assistant Secretary for Financial Management and Information Systems, Bresilda Gervacio discussed the overview, issues and development background of the River Basin Information System. She discussed and elaborated what the Information Management System is all about, stressed about the need on having more data on environmental management and for the system to be developed in such a way that non-programming staff would have no problems in operating the system.
At the outset of the activity, the resource persons of both the web-based information management system and policy development initiated the workshop simultaneously as the participants were divided into two groups. In this way, the expected outputs and goals of the workshop can be achieved on time.
The participants of the workshop on policy development accomplished their draft policy for the Adoption of IRMBD Master Plan and Harmonization of Roles of the River Basin Council, Watershed Management Council, WQMA and PAMB within the river basins with Cagayan River Basin as the pilot site. For the RBIIMS workshop on the other hand, has identified the functions that are not responsive and needs further improvement upon testing the system. Other issues and concerns of the focal persons in the operationalization of the PAPs and Master Plan implementation were also raised and addressed during the activity.
