Fortun commends SP for a job well done

Butuan City – Becoming one of the national finalist in the Local Legislative Award, not to mention competing for the Most Outstanding Sanggunian in the Philippines under the category of Highly-urbanized and Independent Component Cities, this city’s Sangguniang Panlungsod [SP] has now begun to make yet another breakthrough that would fully equip and prepare this city for the challenges ahead.

To make known that Butuan City offers a lot more in terms of good and up-to-date local laws and policies that directly answers to the needs of the people, demonstrates good governance, sees to it that there is transparency in terms of transactions undertaken by the government, and accountability all for the promotion of the welfare and development of this city and its citizens.

For this achievement, Vice Mayor Lawrence “Law” Fortun commended the City Councilors, SP employees and staff for entirely focusing their strength in cooperating, supporting and putting their time and effort in the implementation of the various innovations and initiatives he has introduced and proposed to the office. All of which are done possible to make the SP office fully armed of new technologies and equipment essentially to effectively and efficiently deliver the basic services to the people of Butuan. Fortun said that the recognition by a well-respected and credible institution was made possible because everybody cooperated with the reforms that he has introduced notwithstanding the fact that he only became a Vice Mayor for one term. This, he added, was also made possible because of good governance that he has continually espoused as a public servant. “I was just incidental to all of this recognition being the presiding officer of the SP and the head of the office. Recognition is also fitting to all the SP members and the employees who have cooperated with me in my almost 3 years in office,” Fortun said.

In an interview, one of the employees said that without the initiatives introduced in the SP, through the effective guidance of Fortun, all these awards and recognition would not have been possible.

Local LP bets top FSUU survey

During the press conference called by the university to announce the result of their survey, almost all the local candidates under the Liberal Party fared well in the survey. Amante bested his rival candidate by garnering a preferential rating of 33.13% against his closest rival who only got 26.13%. In the same survey, Fortun was way ahead his rival by reaping a rating of 36.97% against a rival candidate who only got 15.70%. In the race for the 10-seat Councilor the following LP bets placed in the top ten, namely: Ramon P. Carampatan with 13% (1^st place), Ryan Anthony B. Culima with 8.40% (3^rd place), Jaime Cembrano, Jr. with 7.92% (4^th place), Virgilio G. Nery, Jr. with 5.40% (7^th place), Samuel Alan M. Amante with 4.92% (8^th place). The other placers in the top ten came from the two other parties vying in the mid-term local and national elections. In the Vice mayoralty race, local LP bet Angelo S. Calo came in second with a rating of 15.31%. The survey was conducted from January 23-30, 2013.

The survey also revealed that among the top issues that would be considered by the voters in choosing their candidate are: Infrastructure projects implemented, environmental protection and employment and livelihood. According to Atty. Josefe Arrera-Ty, the Director of FSUU Policy Center, this is just the first phase of their survey. The succeeding second up to fourth phases of the survey will be announced on March 22, 2013, April 15, 2013 and May 6, 2013, respectively.