(Excerpt from City Mayor Eric Singson’s speech in his first 100 days report)
I like to greet our Vice Mayor, Kristelle and members of Sanguniang Panlungsod, National Government officials and their staffs, head of offices and their staffs, the people who are attending for our peace and order there are all in my left side, barangay officials, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, let me greet you with a pleasant good morning. Today, allow me to give you my first 100 days as your chief executive mayor of city of Candon. It is a simple celebration but heartwarming for me. Today, I wish to celebrate with you a day to extend my sincere thank you to my co-workers of the government of Candon and as well as the National Government Agencies working with us here in Candon. 100 days of most satisfying work as I can see that everybody is exerting all their efforts to meet our desired objectives in order to serve and give to the demand for a better life of our constituent. From day one after our flag ceremony, I met and visit all the head of offices and their staffs in their respective areas.
I defined then the program of government that I wish to implement and created special bodies to handle our different development programs. I thank you all for performing excellent jobs in spite of the challenges that cross our paths, we were able to achieve significant development programs and projects and completed some of our high impacts’ projects. Allow me then to name the development programs and projects that we were able to achieve within my first 100 days as your Chief Executive with the participation of our Sanguniang Panlungsod. We established microfinance program of our city government. We set aside ₱60 million and the ₱20 million from previous funds allocated for microfinancing with a total of ₱80 million. And another ₱60 million from our partner bank for a total of ₱140 million intended for this program.
This is a project intended to help our agricultural farmers, fishermen or the fishery sector, SMEs, market vendors, retailers, wholesaler, piggery owners, poultry, tricycle drivers and owners, and OFWs as well as cooperatives with the cheapest interest that I know. 3% interest for one year and 3.5% service fee for a total of 6.5% a year. Our task force members headed by (City Cooperative Officer) Grace Ramos are both been going around barangays for public information to campaign, to explain the program and some of the important matters under this program being discussed are responsible, financial management of families. Ammo tayo apo nga kadagiti pampamilya iti kalugaran tayo nu adda mautangan da, umutang da latta. Haan da nga ammo nga maikali dan ti utang. That is why I gave instruction to our taskforce to explain to our people in the barangays. And this is one of the tasks or this is one of our programs that will be pursued throughout the year and throughout the 3 years that I will be your mayor. I’d like to mention to you that we have achieved one of the big projects that we have in Candon. We inaugurated or open the Ilocos Sur Medical Center as infirmary last October 05, 2022, with the help of our District Engineer, Engineer (De Emil) Ganaben, and our city engineers. We were able to open the first phase of this hospital. This is the first stage to achieve tertiary level hospital as level three hospital. It will be in the level of regional hospital. This hospital was born through the sponsorship of our very own Deputy Speaker Kristine Singsong-Meehan. Republic 1175 was approved last April and now this hospital is officially named as Ilocos Sur Medical Center. Our LGU was played a very important role in establishing of this hospital, as it took care of all the lands and lots that the medical center needed to build 21 buildings and within my 100 days, we exerted all our efforts to have it open last October 5. Completion of Candon City hospital annex with two elevators and medical and more medical equipment. Our new hospital annex will be inaugurated within this month.
On the Agricultural sector, we made the groundbreaking ceremony for the establishment of swine multiplier project in the Barangay Tablac. With the assistance of Department of Agriculture, with an allocation of ₱10 Million. The first tranche of ₱8 Million was delivered or released during the groundbreaking. This will serve as our pilot project in producing hybrid swine or a land raise swine. In the facility it will demonstrate biosecurity procedures to have our piggery raisers to protect them to African Swine Fever or ASF. It will also teach us to improve our pigs, it will be the source of piglets for all our piggery raisers. Last October 7, we also did the groundbreaking of Candon City Trading Post in Parioc-Ayudante area along bypass road. The city has allocated ₱22 Million for bagsakan or vegetable market multi-purpose building and P35 Million for animal auction market. The area where farmers will sell their cattle, goats, pigs and chickens and all kinds of animals. This will serve as the market center for our agricultural products. We also started procuring the needs of our tobacco, corn, and vegetable farmers and fisher folks with the total of ₱75 Million. We will soon inaugurate our Arcade Building beside the Civic Center. The Arcade building will generate income for our city, estimated at ₱350 thousand to ₱400 thousand a month coming from rentals from restaurants, gift shops, and dry goods.
We also intend to turn over the PNP substation, the building that used to be the office of LTO. This will serve as temporary City PNP headquarters while we await the implementation of the rehabilitation and construction of PNP building beside Plaza waya-waya. On tourism development we have started our aquarium tourism development project. Initial procurement process has started by DPWH as well as establishment of seaside restaurant.
Now in the final stage of architectural design and planning. We have started our smart city development program the necessary infrastructure and the needed information and planning for transformation of our city into smart city is ongoing. Including of course, the identification of sources of funds for the project, I wish to thank you for our successful executive and legislative agenda or ELA program. Our guide in our achieving our social and economic goals for our city for 3 years and hopefully after 3 years all candonians can walk with heads high the time for a better life for everyone. I wish to assure everyone that our funds will be invested well. I will give priority to projects that will generate income for our City of Candon and create jobs that will make us sustainable in all our undertakings. I wish to thank you all for helping us during the earthquake. All our government agencies in Candon extended their assistance in order that the victims who suffered in the earthquake were given ayudas and also assistance for rebuilding their homes. Let me close with again a million thanks to all our fellow government workers. Job well done for the first 100 days.
Thank you very much.