WHEN spouses Rolando and Mariquit Dy Buco suggested that we invite Gov. Rhodora “Dodod” Cadiao for one of our monthly meetings, everybody agreed. Why not? Everyone in our group, the Antique Circle of Iloilo (ACI), comes from the province she heads.
The Antique governor came as promised to the Hotel del Rio venue the other day (Tuesday, June 19) – together with Executive Assistant Meredith “Madette” Javier, Councilor Dante Beriong, information officer Galileo Magbanua, tourism officer Sammy Rubido and PR man JC Cadiao Perlas – and had lunch with us.
“Oh, Herbert,” she said on seeing this writer. “I still remember the first article you wrote about me.”
“It’s on file,” Madam Madette seconded, referring to the magazine article.
“She has elephant memory,” I quipped in allusion to a theory that elephants remember people, places and events for a long time.
She proved it before us in an unscripted speech revealing her ongoing projects aimed at boosting the potentials of the province, such as the P620-million expansion of the San Jose airport in the hope of regaining commercial flights.
She spoke of her “Cadiao Cares” commitment to constituents, as in health care, among others. A P20-million CT scanner and a P10-milion digital x-ray machine are now among the facilities of the Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital in the capital town of San Jose de Buenavista.
A nurse by profession, she expressed alarm over the prevalence of kidney diseases that used to be unheard of. Such diseases necessitate regular but expensive dialysis – mechanical cleansing of circulating blood – without which a patient would surely die.
“It’s no longer a problem,” she said. “We now have 20-bed dialysis machines in San Jose; 20-bed in Culasi.”
As the present chair of the Regional Development Council, Cadiao said she had gone around other provinces of Western Visayas provinces, where she had rubbed elbows with working Antiqueños like the lowly-paid sacadas or cane farmers in Negros Occidental.
“The last time I talked to Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.,” she disclosed, “he asked why our sacadas had disappeared in his province.”
The Negros governor, of course, knew that the sacadas had come home to Antique, where they could now earn more in livestock farming with financial assistance from the provincial government.
“All towns have a fishing port,” the governor said, thus enabling fishermen and fish vendors alike to thrive.
The closure of Boracay Island had diverted tourists to Antique’s tourist spots, such as the Sira-an Hot Spring, Malumpati Cold Spring, Nogas Island, Seco Island, Malalison Island, Igpasungaw Falls and Duyong Beach.
Responding in behalf of our group, I said that Governor Cadiao is a woman of ambition and destiny. She had aspired to be a flight stewardess and fulfilled it on board international flights of Philippine Airlines (PAL).
“She opted to stay single,” I said, “because in those days PAL employed only beautiful and single stewardesses.”
Indeed, she never thought of joining politics until the year 2001 when she filed a leave of absence to run for a seat in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP). Should she win, she would serve only for one term and return to flying.
Today or 17years later, however, Rhodora “Dodod” Cadiao has flown higher on the political firmament, having been vice-governor and governor of the province.
“It’s her destiny,” I said. “That circumstances pushed her to the political battlefield. She was destined to blaze the trails of her mother who had been vice-governor and her father who had been governor.”
All throughout the two hours she spent with the Antique Circle of Iloilo, Governor Cadiao revealed no political plan for the forthcoming election 2019. It’s a cinch, however, that she would run for re-election.
Alas, we can think of nobody strong enough to topple her. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
