BY SAMMY JULIAN
ILOILO 2nd District’s Rep. Arcadio H. Gorriceta is not a great orator or the kind of leader you expect to inspire massive changes in the Philippine system. But he is a good, hardworking Filipino congressman.
It can also be said that Gorriceta is no ditto head for every cause the leadership of Congress pushes. And he’s a better lawmaker for it.
Only in his first term in Congress, the former Pavia, Iloilo mayor is known as thoughtful, hard-working and articulate. On each and every issue he makes his own, progressive way.
Of course, there are complaints to be made about Gorriceta. He is human like all of us, after all.
But we find him to be an intelligent congressman whose positions on various matters fairly represent the majority of the citizens of Iloilo’s 2nd Congressional District. That may not sound sexy. But it’s what representative democracy is all about.
He once told us that “being involved in so many big issues…is really time-consuming.”
He is one of the few congressmen regularly seen in House of Representatives even if there are no scheduled votes, and can often be seen carrying a huge pile of briefing books, papers and binders.
For him, there is no time for press conferences and silly questions from reporters.
Still, he gets the job done.
Also, Gorriceta has truly mastered the art of being a workhorse. He is constantly on his cell phone, usually trying to reach one of his constituents and spending “a minimum of three and a maximum of 12 hours a day” trying to connect to his constituents.
According to Gorriceta himself: “We generate a huge amount of constituent service doing this – maybe 10 times the average.”
There can be no doubt that he is the right choice for a community full of people who value the kind of non-glamorous hard work that he provides./PN
