UP leases plane for NOAH project with DOST

MANILA, Philippines - The University of the Philippines (UP) has allotted close to P55 million for the lease of an aircraft that will be used in the government’s comprehensive mapping project to identify hazard-prone areas in the country.

Based on an invitation to bid published Thursday in The STAR, the aircraft will fly for a total of 1,450 hours.

The UP said the lease contract costs P54,912,500.

Dan Saguil, acting director of the UP Supply and Property Management Office (SPMO) based in Diliman, Quezon City, said the aircraft would be used in one of the projects of the university’s Training Center for Applied Geodesy and Photogrammetry (TCAGP).

The pre-bid conference for the aircraft lease is set on May 30 at the SPMO conference room.

TCAGP director Ariel Blanco said the aircraft would be used in the Disaster Risk and Exposure Assessment for Mitigation (DREAM), a two-year partnership project of the university and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Blanco, who also chairs the UP Department of Geodetic Engineering, said the budget for the lease would be taken from the P1.2 billion allotted by the DOST to the university. He clarified that the funds came from the national government and not from the university.

The DREAM program was among the eight components of DOST’s Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards), the country’s flagship program in disaster mitigation.

Project NOAH seeks to harness technologies and management services for disaster risk reduction activities offered by the DOST in partnership with the UP National Institute of Geological Sciences and the UP College of Engineering.

Other components focus on the distribution of rain gauges, geohazard mapping, coastal hazard and storm surge assessment and mitigation, and development of flood information network, Doppler radar systems, landslide sensors, and a system to disseminate weather hazard information.

Third plane

The aircraft will be the third for the DREAM program. In November, two light planes were launched from Clark Airbase in Pampanga to scan the country’s major river basins.

DOST Sec. Mario Montejo earlier said the project would determine areas that are prone to flooding and other natural hazards.

Program leader Enrico Paringit said the program would use the state-of-the-art Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) instruments to obtain 3D datasets that will be the basis for a reliable, detailed, and up-to-date flood hazard models.

“The maps that will be generated by the DREAM will be very beneficial for government agencies,” Paringit said.

UP to bid out dorm support services

Meanwhile, the UP SPMO announced the bidding for the master lessee who will operate and manage the support services in the two buildings of the UP Centennial Dormitory.

In a separate invitation to bid, also published Thursday in The STAR, the winning bidder would have a five-year contract agreement with the university.