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Speech of PMS Secretary Cerge M. Remonde during the
2ND Awarding Ceremonies for the Best Public Sector Projects |
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Iloilo Grand Hotel, Iloilo City |
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18 April 2008, 2:00 PM |
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(Courtesies) Maayong hapon sa inyo nga tanan! It gives me great pleasure to be part of this important event here in Iloilo City - - the awarding ceremonies for the second R.D.C. VI Best Public Sector Projects. I would like to thank the Regional Development Council chaired by Governor Sally Perez, for inviting me here. Damo gid nga salamat, Governor Perez. Worthy of commendation are the award organizers, RDC VI and NEDA VI, and their partners, for conceptualizing these awards, giving due honor and recognition to the nobility of public service and the desirability of best practice. I find it fitting that once a year, we pause a moment and survey our work in public service, and single out that which does honor to the government and the country. I must commend, as well, the select members of the board of judges - - Mr. Emmanuel Areño of Iloilo Code NGO; Mr. Antonio Jon of the Iloilo Business Club; Mayor Jerry Treñas of Iloilo City; Mr. Edwin Larriza of CPU Katin-aran Center; and Dir. Arturo Valero of NEDA VI - - whose task it was to select the best from the outstanding, to arrive at today’s harvest of awards. I understand, the selection process was as thorough as it was rigorous, starting with the 109 screened and qualified projects in April 2007, narrowed down to a short-list of 49 in January, this year; and an even shorter-list of 17 in February, from which the final three winners in each of the three categories were chosen – all of whom we will be honoring with their respective awards, in a short while. On behalf of the president and the government, I thank the Canadian Urban Institute for underwriting this phase of the tedious selection process. And the GTZ Decentralization Program for making the first screening possible. Pursuant to the RDC’s awards criteria, the nominated projects were judged on the basis of their contributions to regional development based on the indicators in the Western Visayas Regional Development Plan, 2004-2010. Any project going through that wringer to cop an award must truly be among the best. It makes me extremely happy to congratulate our winners this year - from the local government units, regional line agencies, and the state, universities and colleges - whose projects exemplify good public sector practices, excellence in governance, and effective leadership. Personally, I cannot help but feel a great sense of pride from the list of awardees, which includes our partners in our MSME or Micro Small and Medium Enterprise Program - - DTI and DOST - - and in our major infrastructure projects, represented by VIA. In addition to being head of PMS, I have been given cabinet oversight of the government’s MSME program and the major infrastructure projects, particularly those in the President’s SONA or State of the Nation Address commitments. From that vantage project, I have seen quite a bit of government’s best. I have gone over the list of your winning projects, and I must say that I am most impressed. As much as these projects support your priorities in Western Visayas, they also reflect and mirror our national priorities. For one, faith, or food always in the home, the winning entry of Negros State College of Agriculture, in the state universities and colleges category, speaks eloquently to our need to address jointly and with solidarity our concerns for food security. As you must know, declining reserves and rising costs in the global grains market, that drive household and manipulative hoarding domestically, exacerbate the already fragile rice situation we are in. Over the long term, programs and best practice like faith are our best hedge against manipulators and the vagaries of the global markets. Of course, our infrastructure program, represented in this case by the NIA’s rehabilitation of the Aganan River irrigation system, also bolster our food production. The rest of the infrastructure program, needless to say, makes possible the seamless movement of farm produce to markets, of passengers from destination to destination. Major roads and railroads, air and sea ports, farm-to-market roads, the cold chain, are all part of the seamless transport and market infrastructure, to be built at a cost of over P2.0 trillion. For Region VI alone, we are investing over P29.1 billion for two major roads; for airports, two of which - - Iloilo and Bacolod-Silay - - are already completed; one Ro-Ro port; one flood control; and, three power and electrification projects. Except for the flood control project, all of these are to be completed by 2010. The winning marketing programs of DTI in the regional line agencies category, and DOST’s set-up, I am pleased to note, are the same winning elements that have bolstered our MSME programs nationwide, resulting in more than 2.1 million new jobs generated between 2004 and 2007, from P203.61 billion loans released to more than 3.65 million clients. The Bacolod Information Technology Investment Program, the winning project for the LGU category, affirms the validity of our thrust in the cyber corridor, which is one of the government’s priority development areas under the super regions. Truly representative of best practice and best concepts, and focused on employment, the environment, tourism, training, entrepreneurship, health, food and security concerns, the nine winning projects in the three categories, and their eight runners up, are the embodiment of innovation and vision, ingenuity and industry, persistence and commitment, and a tenacity of purpose to be the best in what we can be, using resources and facilities that are at hand. In looking at today’s awards and awardees from that prism of vision, diligence and determination, our lately departed and widely-mourned colleague in public service, Governor Joseph Marañon of Negros Occidental, looms large and overarching. Indeed, in his lifetime, Governor Marañon embodied, and lived, those virtues and best practice that make our awardees our winners today. His seven-point priority development agenda for Negros Occidental sweeps through all the major service concerns, going, as he put it: “beyond the basic”. A 3-term mayor of Sagay, and already on his 3rd term as governor at the time of his passing, Governor Marañon was well on his way to reinvigorating the province of Negros Occidental, like he had transformed Sagay from a municipality into a city. (If I may be permitted to exceed the bounds traditionally extended to guests of honor, may I be bold enough to propose that the best public sector project for the LGU category be named after Governor Marañon, if not henceforth, at least for this year.) Through your awardees’ projects, change is sweeping across the Western Visayas and the country. More and more people are being empowered, more lives are being changed for the better, and more communities are transformed. Through them, the sustainable national development that continues to elude us may yet be realized. Sustainable national growth can be achieved through the small gains happening in the regions and in the countryside. With all of us working together, in concert, we can contribute more to national life. With greater coordination of all our activities happening in the various communities and in the countryside, the whole country can rise as one. Your projects are showing us the way to become the best, paving the way for our triumph over the odds which today we face as a nation. On the whole, the winners today are testimony to the advances of our country in our time. Through your projects, you give us confidence that our dream to be a first world country in 2020 is within our grasp. This awarding ceremony today, more than being a platform to showcase the paragons of change and local governance, is a way to our future – the way to look, and the way to go. If there’s anything that our efforts, successes and achievements teach us, it is that the we can achieve the full potential of our talent, energy, creativity and resiliency and initiate steps to brave the hardships that try and test us; and that our destiny as a nation is ours to create and to realize. The projects that we recognize and the people we award today deserve the honor and distinction due them not because they have sought acclaim for themselves, but because their talents, sacrifices and their hard work have improved the lives of countless others. Through these projects, hopefully, we will be able to forge a stronger feeling of nationhood above partisan politics and narrow self-interest. Part of our task – yours and mine – is to bring out the best in us. To give ourselves the confidence to believe in what we can be. In your achievements today is embedded the ageless lesson that while our future is to be secured by massive development programs and a heroic political leadership, it is to be won even more surely by diligent attention to the little things – to the village and the neighborhood transformed through micro-projects; to every child raised to good health; to every man or woman led to good ventures and businesses; to every tree planted; to every young person raised to good education, among others. For it is from such common and small achievements that mighty nations are built. On behalf of the many Ilonggos, Visayans and Filipinos whose lives your projects have touched, and on behalf of our beloved president, I thank you now, the winners; we thank you even more for your work that is not yet finished, knowing that you have many more years of service, achievements and projects ahead of you. These awards are not a culmination, but a midpoint, a springboard toward an even more fulfilling future. I challenge you to lead others in doing as you have done. The best, indeed, is yet to come. We look forward with great hope and eagerness to what you shall be doing in the next few years, days and months to prove further that you and your projects were wisely chosen, and that you will continue to achieve. May you keep up the great work and give us added inspiration to do more in our desire not only to make a difference in our communities but to contribute to the task of building a nation every Filipino desires. You have given ample proof that whatever an Ilonggo or whatever a Filipino does, he or she can do as well as – or better than – anyone else in the world through worthwhile projects. This is a harvest of the bests which we can all be proud of! To you, I offer the region’s and nation’s salute, honor and deep respect. Damo nga salamat sa inyo nga tanan! Mabuhay! |
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