MORE than just delivering basic essential social services, both the ‘People’s Day’ and ‘Klarex Nga Serbisyo Sa Baryo’ outreach programs are aimed at fostering better dialogue between City Hall and its constituents, Mayor Rolando ‘Klarex’ Uy’s political advisor said yesterday.
“Yes, both the ‘People’s Day’ and ‘Klarex Nga Serbisyo Sa Baryo’ programs involve delivering essential services to the people but it’s more than that. Through these programs (the Klarex administration) engages the people in dialogue to seek their input (on how to improve mechanisms) to access City Hall’s services for them,” said Jordan Apat, Mayor Uy’s political advisor during yesterday’s media roundtable held in one of the city’s hotels.
Apat said these, days after Mayor Uy announced during Monday’s flag-raising program at City Hall that he wants to meet at least 100 mothers in every barangay flag-raising program that he attends every week.
“So that I will talk to them about (my administration’s campaign to) reduce teenage pregnancies. I will ask the City Health Office (CHO) through (City Health Officer) Dr. Rachel Dilla to facilitate this,” Mayor Uy told the City Hall bureaucracy in Visayan.
Mayor Uy voiced his concern about the potential rise of teenage pregnancies following the resumption of face-to-face classes in the city’s schools due to the easing of health protocol restrictions.
CHO chief Dr. Dilla previously stated that teen pregnancies in the city went down to 38 percent in 2021 compared to 47 percent and 46 percent in 2018 and 2019 respectively due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
It’s these outreach programs that facilitate constant exposure and contact of Mayor Klarex and City Hall department managers with the people of Cagayan de Oro that sets the tone for dialogue and constant exchange of inputs between City Hall and the public, Apat explained.
“Through these meetings, we constantly (refine and update) our approaches) to resolving the concerns (of our people),” he said.
“The creation of the RISE agenda of the Klarex administration evolved from a dialogue with an initial 14,000 respondents from across all sectors of the city. (Sometime soon) we will conduct consultations again (and augmenting what we learned in our outreach programs) we will (update our development agenda for the people),” Apat said.
Through these outreach programs and active engagements with stakeholders like the private sector, Apat said the Klarex administration will make clear its push for the metropolization of Cagayan de Oro and its leadership role in northern Mindanao.
“(But simply put) what it also boils down to is improving the qualify of life (of every Kagay-anon family) in the city,” Apat said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)
