Quezon City is set to get support for the implementation of a campaign to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks.
Ordinance 2579-2017, authored by Councilor Irene Belmonte, prohibits stores near schools from selling junk food and soft drinks to minors. The measure caught the attention of foreign cities.
Quezon City Mayor Herbert M. Bautista will lead the Quezon City delegation to two high-profile international conferences in France and in the US. They will be attending the Partnership for Healthy Cities in Paris. The conference is sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The Quezon City mayor was also personally invited to the forum by Michael Bloomberg, who, like Bautista, was three-term mayor of New York City.
Quezon City will join 45 other first world and developing cities in the forum that aims to enable cities around the world to deliver a high-impact policy or intervention measures to reduce noncommunicable disease risk factors in their communities.
Each city will receive support from Bloomberg Philantrophies to implement one of 10 proven interventions to prevent noncommunicable diseases and injuries.
From Paris, the Quezon City delegation will head for the United Nations headquarters in New York to attend the 12th Global Forum on Human Settlements and Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Awards Ceremony from on October 30 and 31.
Bautista has issued Office Order 148-2017, designating Vice Mayor Josefina G. Belmonte-Alimurung as acting mayor with Councilor Marie Grace Preciosa Hipolito-Castelo as acting vice mayor from October 20 to 28.
Office Order 149-2017, which was also signed on October 19, meanwhile, designates Hipolito-Castelo as acting mayor and Councilor Jose A. Visaya as acting vice mayor from October 28 to November 1.
For steering Quezon City to become the Most Competitive Highly Urbanized City in the country and for winning various governance awards here and abroad, Bautista has become one of the most sought-after resource persons on local governmental management and sustainable development.