City council names Legazpi vital road after brilliant ex-village chieftain By Danny O. Calleja LEGAZPI CITY, Jan. 23 (PNA) -– The sterling performance during his time of the late chieftain of an urban village here has driven the city legislative council into naming a vital street after him on the 10th anniversary of his death. Formerly the 5th Street Extension, the roadway has been renamed as Jose L. Lee Street through an ordinance authored by city councilor Raul Rosal and recently passed by the Sangguniang Panlunsod (SP). It is a half-kilometer two-way concrete access road linking the downtown Barangay Oro Site with the residential sites of Barangay Bitano which greatly helps in easing the traffic congestion in the city’s main thoroughfares during peak hours. The street has also been identified by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council as the new tsunami evacuation route for residents near the city proper’s coastal areas. The ordinance was passed by the SP early last week and Mayor Noel Rosal on Friday said he signed it last Jan. 16, a day prior to its effectivity set Jan. 17, the 10th death anniversary of Lee. Joe “Oro” Lee, as he was popularly known and remembered today as the “Builder of Oro Site”, first served as political head of the village located at the very heart of the city’s Port District when the place was practically a slum settlement floating on murky, stinking swamps way back in the late 1980s. The entry of Lee into the stewardship of the barangay government pronounced the beginning of the transformation era that later on would reverse the gloomy state of the village into what it is now - an ideally livable village occupied by a well-meaning neighborhood, a calamity-resilient and peaceful community and the center of trade and commerce, among other distinctions that he was able to put in place before his untimely demise, according to councilor Rosal. The late village leader served as a three-term chairman (1989-2005) and it was under his stewardship that the barangay was conferred by the city government the highest award as one of the “Top 10 Barangays” which implemented the greatest number of projects from May 1997 to June 2000, thereby enabling the city government to achieve its “2000+ Projects in the Year 2000.” He is well-remembered by the women in the barangay for his effort started in 1991 which empowered the sector into becoming an active component of the community through the formation of a people’s organization named Oro Site Women’s Organization (OSWA). This organization since then has become an active member of the Legazpi City Women’s Federation to become part of a dynamic force working on the advancement of the welfare of families and communities in the city. The village’s youth loved Lee for his work as barangay chairman toward the establishment of the Oro Site High School (OSHS) that materialized in 2000 to address the needs of the homegrown youth and other nearby barangays, especially students belonging to indigent families to gain access to a public high school within the locality. He then pioneered the barangay scholarship program for indigent high school students in Oro Site dubbed as: “Abante Estudyante,” which enabled poor children to finish secondary education at the OSHS. His untiring initiative in working on the extensive concreting of the barangay roads and catwalks that eased the difficulties of barangay residents in moving around the place, especially during emergency situations, and drainage systems that now help address the flooding of streets during heavy rains are the more notable accomplishments that village residents pin on their late former barangay head. Indeed, Barangay Oro Site is now disaster-resilient owing to what Lee had started. Attesting to this is the 2013 National Championship in the Gawad Kalasag Award of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) which the barangay, now under his son-- Joseph Philip Lee serving the same post he vacated, won under the Urban Barangay Category. With that, Barangay Oro Site became an instant celebrity as the national center for the sharing of best practices on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation towards building of disaster-resilient communities. The village’s senior citizens also remember the late Lee as their inspiration into organizing themselves and indulging in physical fitness activities and healthy living. This sector has since then been given importance as part of the community that plays an active part in community-building. The Muslims of Barangay Oro Site also cherish the late leader as it was because of him that their community has been accepted and now recognized as integral part of the barangay whose involvement in public activities and participation in over-all community works have been given importance. At large, his personal battle cry-- “Walang Tamad sa Oro Site” -- remains the guiding line for the barangay and its people’s to rise above challenges of life through love for work, love for family and love for God. For the entire constituency of the city whom he served as ex-officio city councilor for three years (2002-2005) being then the elected president of the Association of Barangay Chairmen, now the Liga ng mga Barangay, Lee would not be forgotten for his pursuit of good governance, health and sanitation, fast delivery of basic government services and poverty alleviation through livelihood training and distribution of food production inputs. For the city, Joe Oro Lee was a statesman, and for Barangay Oro Site, he was an outstanding community leader, an ideal friend, a hero and most of all, a father whose death was very unfortunate as it left them orphaned by a provider of goodwill and well-being, Mayor Rosal said. Those are only a few of the good and significant works that he could be remembered of, thus, naming the road, whose building he facilitated, is a just and fitting accolade that this great man of his time posthumously deserves, he added. Josephine Locsin-Lee, the widow, said “it is indeed a great accolade for my late husband, and our family. We, in the family and in the barangay, stand as firsthand witnesses to the sleepless nights he spent thinking of ways how to make this road happen for the benefit not only of his village mates but of the entire city.” (PNA) LAP/FGS/DOC/CBD/
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 07:14:41 +0000
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