ILOILO City – An estimated 15,000 residents of this city trooped to the historic Plaza Libertad to hear congressman and mayoralty candidate Jerry Treñas and his Team Uswag allies reveal their “level-up” plans for the next three years.
They were a multi-sectoral audience consisting of political leaders, followers, friends, relatives, students, professionals, businessmen, laborers, farmers, and even the terminated city hall job hires.
“Give me another chance to be mayor,” Treñas addressed his audience in Ilonggo. “This is not the time to give up just because you are dissatisfied with the way the present leadership abuses power. I would like to say it again and again that if you feel like losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and stand tall and wait for better days to come for their leaves to grow again.”
He reminded his audience that Iloilo City had reached that development stage where fast economic development is no longer a problem because the “ingredients are available, ready to cook.”
“I call this the uswag level,” he stressed. “This is evident in massive economic development characterized by mushrooming business activities, influx of new residents in subdivisions, daily appearance of new motor vehicles on the widened roads. Our challenge is to take advantage of them so that the benefits of the business sector would trickle down to their workers.”
The outgoing congressman made mention of his team mate Julienne “Jam-jam” Baronda as a “worthy successor” because of her past experience as city councilor, and more so as political officer of Sen. JV Ejercito.
Treñas spoke highly of the incumbent vice mayor, Jeffrey Ganzon, who would be performing the same familiar job in his administration.
He said that at the rate it is growing, by the year 2028 Iloilo City would have inevitably gained national recognition as one of the “top three best urbanized cities in the country in terms of livability, competitiveness, viability and governance practice.”
“For the city to prosper,” Treñas said, “we have to keep the people healthy and well-equipped to earn a living. We have to build a hospital for the poor, upgrade our public markets to level up with the malls, complete drainage projects, build high-rise condominiums as relocation sites and build senior-citizen and youth centers.”
He reiterated that he had already prepared a roadmap that would guide him in his “level-up” intention for the city in his forthcoming administration.
“Uswag! Gugma! Arriba!”
As the excited crowd was yelling those one-word slogans outlining the visions of the National Unity Party (NUP) or Team Uswag locally, Treñas presented his candidates for councilors, namely Jay Treñas, Lady Julie Grace Baronda, Ely Estante, Armand Parcon, Madonna Martin, Reyland Hervias, Jojo Javellana, Rodulph Jeffrey Ganzon, Gilbert Garcia, Allan Zaldivar, Rommel Duron, and Brian Zulueta.
The congressman lauded the vice mayor and the six incumbent Sangguniang Panlungsod allies for not participating in a special session aimed at declaring Iloilo City under a state of calamity the despite lack of quorum and insufficiency of grounds: Baronda, Estante, Parcon, Treñas, Irene Ong and Leila Luntao.
They did not participate because they would be violating Republic Act 10121 which prohibits deliberate use of false and inflated data in support of request for emergency assistance.
The law states that “violators shall be prosecuted and upon conviction shall suffer a fine not exceeding P500,000 or imprisonment, including perpetual disqualification from public office.”
Treñas reiterated the illegality of the resolution on the following grounds:
* First, only four out of 180 barangays had sought the city government for assistance to provide water. The four barangays have a population of only 28,211 or only 5.97 percent of the city’s total population of 472,491.
* Second, only 4.88 percent or 18.5 hectares out of 379 hectares of land were affected by water scarcity.
* Third, there is no disruption of water system that cannot be restored in 24 hours.
* Fourth, the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) has not found drastic shortage of water supply to warrant declaration of state of calamity.
* Fifth, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) has not made a recommendation to declare the city under a stage of calamity.
* Sixth, the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management, in its April 22, 2019 meeting, reported, “In the absence of documents from the barangays declaring the state of calamity, it becomes difficult and challenging to declare a state of calamity. Evidence such as barangay resolution is a strong support to this.”
If the resolution results in the release of funds sought for, the erring councilors, the mayor, the treasurer and other department heads concerned may be punished accordingly.
Of the 180 barangays, only two, Lanit and Tacas in Jaro, reported dry-spell damage suffered by 14 farmers within only 18.5 hectares of land./PN