INAUGURAL ADDRESS By: Governor Art Defensor June 28, 2013 Your Excellency, Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, Your Honors – Senator Franklin Drilon, Secretary Mar Roxas, Vice Governor Raul “Boboy” Tupas and Members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan – distinguished guests, fellow workers in government, friends, ladies and gentlemen: The inaugural ceremony very much like this one, three years ago was an occasion to sketch in very broad strokes the challenges of the future and the means of addressing them. It was a morning for sharing visions, taking stock of resources, and committing to a program of “reform and change” as the means of attaining them. After the noise had died down and the political dust had settled, the last elections have shown us that our people have reached an admirable level of political maturity and that it is not all money that counts. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you can buy all the voters at one time, some of the voters all the time, but you cannot buy the great majority of the voters all the time. Despite my lack of finances, you have consistently supported me and never wavered in your faith and trust in the depth of my commitment and resolve to serve our people with honor and dignity. By Monday, armed with this fresh and overwhelming mandate from our people, I shall take on another challenge in public service – a challenge to make things far better than what we have now; a challenge to enhance and strengthen what we have achieved in the last three years; and a challenge to institutionalize “reform and change” in the Province of Iloilo. We will sustain and improve on our gains in our programs on hospital upgrading, re-greening and reforestation, water and sanitation, education and youth development, infrastructure, coastal resource rehabilitation, law enforcement, employment generation and food sufficiency. Our hospital upgrading program will take its physical form this year as we have a budget of 500 million pesos for this purpose. As we rehabilitate and improve our hospitals, we will also boost the capacities of our health personnel so we can turn our hospitals into models of best practices in the delivery of medical services to the people, especially the poor. On the other hand, we will institute a comprehensive hospital reform program, and I am directing my Provincial Administrator, who is also the chief of the Hospital Management Office, to carry out this mandate in six months. Our re-greening and reforestation efforts will now shift to a higher gear as we aim to plant not only one million trees but 1.5 million this year, and in every year thereafter. We will now call our initiative “Action for Re-greening and Transformation for Climate Change Adaptation” as we join the global call in the building of climate-change resilient communities. There are many other things that need to be addressed like water and sanitation, the persistent lack of classrooms and teachers where we assist the Department of Education through our Provincial School Board in the improvement of our educational system, and the bid to increase farm production where we partner with the Department of Agriculture in supporting our farmers achieve agricultural sufficiency. We know we don’t have a ready answer for everything. That is why, as soon as the heat of the last elections cooled down, we began to strategize things so we can be guided on what to do in the next three years. While we will build on what we have started, we are going to re-examine them so we can draw a roadmap where the following questions shall be answered: Where we are now? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? Just before our elections, we retooled our personnel with the concepts of result-based management because we want to launch programs and projects with measurable results. After all, that is what counts in the end – results. We will just be wasting money if we launch costly programs where we can’t see and measure the results. What the people will appreciate in the end are programs and projects that will uplift their daily existence. This is what we wish to bring to the people in the years to come – results, results, results. In doing so, we find true meaning and true value in our every endeavor. And we find in ourselves too, our true worth as public servants – where we can sleep soundly knowing that we have made a gratifying impact on the very lives of our people. The great Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” And I have found myself in the hearts of our people. The inspiring result of the recent election – the fresh and the overwhelming mandate that the people have given me – can attest to that. For me, those were the very measurable results that I derive from serving a cause greater than myself – the cause of “reform and change”. And it is a cause that will bring contentment and bliss to the very hearts of the people where I truly believe I now dwell. We will continue to chant the mantra of “reform and change” so it can reverberate across the length and breadth of the Province of Iloilo, and eventually turn this reality into an institution. We shall use the power of “reform and change” in lifting ourselves from the ordinary to a higher level of public service. These sacred syllables must dwell in our senses and in our hearts so we can make this great Province synonymous to a living, breathing, growing and shining embodiment and exemplar of true, honest, responsible and responsive governance. Thank you for your faith in me – that I will always treasure. It will inspire me and, with God’s grace, I will not fail you. Madamo gid nga salamat kag maayong aga sa inyo tanan.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 02:46:57 +0000
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