Tuesday, July 10, 2007 Move dev’t to countryside: Gwen
CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday said it is time to move development and growth from the city to the countryside.
“I believe that it is time that growth and development move outward, from the city, and to the countryside that feeds it, feeds its mouth, feeds its workforce, feeds its industry, and feeds its economy,” the governor said during yesterday’s inaugural session of the Provincial Board (PB).
Garcia also asked the PB for support of the bid to make Cebu Province a special economic zone.
“These are exciting times for this province,” Garcia said in her speech.
The governor clarified that in saying that development should move to the countryside, she is not only talking about the “brickbats and roadblocks” thrown in the way of the province.
Opportunity
“I am talking of the real opportunity for the inhabitants of the Province of Cebu to rise to every challenge, to defend its honor and its birthright, and to seize the bright and prosperous future that will bring us to our rightful place before the national and international stage,” she said.
Garcia asked the PB to work with her in making the rest of Cebu an alternative for investors.
She said the aim of her growth thrust is to spread the benefits of growth and development to the countryside so that future investors, in locating investments, will look less upon the highly urbanized metropolitan area.
“This will provide investors both local and foreign relief from the increasingly inhospitable, oftentimes hostile, business environment in the city,” Garcia said.
Garcia also sought the support of the PB in the Capitol’s delivery of basic services that the people need and deserve. She also urged the board to prepare for growth and asked their legislative support for big-ticket infrastructure project like the trans-axial highway, bulk water supply, and power supply.
The governor said that during the 2004 inaugural session, the PB was “divided, sharply, along partisan political lines.”
She said that the unity between the executive and the legislative departments in the last three years owes a lot to the “humility, decency and the clarity of vision” of Vice Governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr.
Wrong foot
Sanchez, in yesterday’s session, said that “if I began my service as presiding officer at the Provincial Legislative body on the wrong foot, I am positively starting this new term with the right one.”
The vice-governor was the running mate of Celestino “Junie” Martinez, Garcia’s rival in the 2004 elections.
Sanchez also talked about the benefits that the trans-axial highway, also known as the unity highway, will bring to the province and its constituents.
The ordinance for the project was passed on first reading yesterday.
Joven Mondigo Jr., the likely winner for the fourth district PB seat attended the inaugural session.
His name was not included in the roll call but his attendance was acknowledged. (KNT)
