Davao City, the most highly urbanized among cities in Mindanao, is showing its big brother trait to its neighboring local government units that were hit by major floods very recently.
The top city in the Davao Region has allocated close to half a billion pesos to help the Provinces of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley, and Davao Oriental back on their feet after the devastation brought by massive floods late the other week.
According to reports in the media, hundreds of millions of pesos worth of crops and infrastructure were destroyed by flood waters that overflowed the major rivers that cut across these provinces. It may be recalled that the other week Mindanao, specifically the Davao Region, was in its worst rainy situation.
The rains were observed not quite heavy. However, it poured non-stop for days causing the rivers to overflow as waters rushed towards the lowlands unimpeded in its journey. What with the region’s major mountain ranges already bald and the plains converted into either massive corporate farms or low-rise residential subdivisions.
Davao City, whose collections and cash receipts overshot its budget for 2018, did not hesitate to take a huge chunk from its resources to help its neighbors in need.
We can only thank Mayor Inday Sara and the Sangguniang Panlungsod for immediately deciding to help its neighbors. We know that the lady mayor, the councilors, and the residents of Davao City in general, cannot stand seeing residents of its neighboring provinces wallowing and gasping for air in the waters of misfortune while they (the city officials and people) are floating on board the “luck” boat on an ocean of financial resources.
So, we believe that the almost half a billion pesos taken from its coffer would hardly be a dent on the city’s wall or reserves. Meaning, at this point in time, even if the city itself is hit with disaster — God forbids — it can still tie over itself for days, even months perhaps.
As a resident of the city we can only be proud of Davao City’s lady mayor and the members of the City Council. They did what is both legally and morally right in a given situation.
Thank you Mayor Inday, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. That particular act of immediately coming to the rescue of our unfortunate neighbors deserves every city resident’s utmost appreciation!
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This may be late. But still we believe that this congratulatory message deserves to be made known.
We mean our congratulations to the officers and members of the Board of Trustees of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (DCCCII) who were inducted to office late last week. We learned from a newspaper advertisement that the newly inducted President is Mr. Arturo “Art” Milan, our former boss at Davao Light and Power Co., the Aboitiz-owned electric utility providing power in Davao City, Panabo City and the municipalities of Carmen, Dujali, Sto. Tomas and three barangays of Kapalong in Davao del Norte.
We have no doubt that DCCCII is the most prestigious organization of businessmen and business entities in Davao City. It is not there for the sake of socialization but for advocating policies for adoption not only by the businessmen themselves but also by the government to attain economic advancement.
However, we heard talks indicating that while the officers and trustees are oozing with professionalism in the way they comport themselves in public there is one sector in the organization’s board who has been questioning the legitimacy of the representations of certain officers and trustees in the Chamber.
In fact, we learned that certain personalities who are part of the said “doubting sector” have gone to the highest echelon of the corporate group in their desire to erase their doubts.
We do not know what they got from their inquiry and whether they are satisfied with the answers to their questions. But one thing is certain. That is, that even in a supposedly well-heeled, highly professional groups like the DCCCII, personal and sectoral interests still influence the conduct of some of its officers and members.
We can only hope that the smiles of those concerned “doubting” officers did not betray their real feelings during their induction ceremony.
