IF ELECTED as city mayor, City of Naga mayoral candidate Kristine Vanessa Chiong plans to bring “a woman’s touch” to the City’s plans and programs.
Chiong, a teacher and lawyer, apart from being the daughter of incumbent City of Naga Mayor Valdemar Chiong, said she wants to focus on improving the city’s education and health programs, including putting up the city’s first laboratory.
“While the City still doesn’t have its own hospital yet, I want to put up a facility that could cater to the citizens’ laboratory needs,” Chiong said.
The 34-year-old lawyer told Sun.Star Cebu that while she plans to continue her father’s programs and projects, she wants to add a personal touch if given a chance to serve as mayor.
“I’m really hands-on. I like to micromanage and want to be there on the ground to supervise the work,” Chiong said.
Chiong said that as part of her educational programs, she wants to improve the City’s daycare system, the crucial “start of formal learning.”
As a licensed teacher, Chiong said it has been her advocacy that everyone in the southern city must be educated. She wants to improve on the City’s scholarship program by allowing deserving students who want to take five-year college courses, such as engineering and architecture, to avail themselves of the program. The City’s scholarship program, which enrolls more than 100 scholars per year, currently offers it to students who avail themselves of four-year college courses.
Chiong said that since Naga is an industrial city, companies doing business in the city shouldn’t need to look far to hire new workers with the needed skills and training. She also wants to put up Naga’s first school for culture and the arts.
In terms of health, Chiong said that she wants to improve the delivery of health services to the barangays.
She wants to organize service caravans that would bring health and other basic services to the city’s 19 barangays.
Before she decided to run for city mayor, Chiong served as legal consultant and executive secretary to her father for two terms.