Oro vies for Galing Pook Awards anew

IN expressing their gratitude for Cagayan de Oro’s inclusion in this year’s Galing Pook Awards, city officials vowed to sustain and expand their efforts to provide quality education to the city’s indigent children.

“My administration is committed to making quality education more accessible to the children by sustaining the gains achieved in partnership (with our stakeholders) and improving on our services to the people. We’ll continue with our scholarship program, from 7,000 scholarships before to 8,500 scholars,” Mayor Rolando ‘Klarex’ Uy told a group of Galing Pook Awards evaluators during their visit to the city last Friday.

Mayor Uy headed a small group of City Hall officials that included Councilor Suzette Magtajas-Daba and City Administrator Roy Hilario Raagas as well as former mayor Oscar Moreno.

In his message, Uy credited his partnership with Moreno whom he succeeded as mayor for building more classrooms, more access roads, and school buildings in the city’s hinterland barangays and downtown areas.

“In our (partnership with former mayor Moreno) during my tenure as congressman of the city’s first district we cemented roads leading to the schools and built classrooms and school buildings (in) every barangay in the city’s first district. In Barangay Tumpagon, we have more classrooms than students,” Uy said. Moreno said he suggested to Mayor Uy to submit City Hall’s education program as their entry.

“There’s a message here in our presentation which is very important to all of us which is (that our entry to the Galing Pook Awards) is a product of total team effort. This is not the product of one person alone (but the sum total of our efforts) and this would not have achieved the level of success that we had without the cooperation of everyone,” Moreno said.

Councilor Magtajas-Daba, who chairs the 20th City Council’s education committee, said City Hall’s entry entitled ‘Making Dreams Come True: Providing Accessible, Quality Education in Cagayan de Oro City’ is dedicated to the people of Cagayan de Oro City.

“It’s a great honor to be shortlisted again, From 196 local governments down to the top 30, we compete for (another Galing Pook Award) for the fourth time,” she said.

Cagayan de Oro City won Galing Pook Awards in 2017, 2018, and 2021 for their entries ‘Rising Up From The Mud…and Political Obstructionism’ (poverty alleviation), ‘No Vote Ibot No More…Ending the Political Bondage In Resettlement Areas by Providing Security of Tenure’ (social housing and resettlement) and ‘Health Is Worth Fighting For’ (improving the city’s health care system as a Covid-19 response) respectively.

“(The city’s entry to the Galing Pook Awards) is a recognition of our efforts, the solutions and innovations (in solving challenges in education) facing our communities…it’s a manifestation of our shared values, shared vision and shared mission in education, a manifestation of empowerment and resilience,” Councilor Magtajas-Daba said.

For his part, City Administrator Raagas cited the role of the Galing Pook Awards in ‘immensely enhancing the promotion of excellence in local governance’ for the past 30 years.

“As a city administrator (during the time of the late mayor Pablo Magtajas) Cagayan de Oro was cited in 1994 for its mobile street school project that was operated at the Agora bus terminal for street children,” Raagas said.

Former Negros Occidental governor Rafael ‘Lito’ Coscolluela, who heads the Galing Pook Awards validation team, asked Mayor Uy to fulfill his administration’s commitment to sustain the city’s gains in education.

Launched on October 21, 1993, the Galing Pook Awards gives recognition to best practices by local governments across the country. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)