Calbayog mayor cites gains in first 100 days

CALBAYOG CITY – Mayor Raymund Uy here bared on Sunday, Oct. 16, his accomplishments in his first 100 days as chief executive.

“Change is a process. There are a lot of changes that we need to learn and follow. And I would like to take it one at a time,” Uy, who rated his performance nine over ten, said during this city’s 74th Charter Day celebration.

To provide basic, affordable, and climate-resilient housing, Uy said the City Housing Development Office has conducted a housing inventory among homeowner’s associations.

The initiative aims to identify qualified beneficiaries for socialized housing programs based on the city’s comprehensive habitation code.

“Despite the numerous housing projects created by the city, we found out that there are still many informal settlers in the urban area,” he revealed.

Uy said that they conducted a relocation and topographic survey for the proposed Samar Island Medical Center with an area of 33,888-square meters in Barangay Gadgaran.

The mayor vowed to relocate informal settlers affected by the project to a housing project in Barangay Trinidad.

The project can accommodate up to 3,000 families.

However, Uy said that over 1,500 houses have been reserved despite the lack of a city ordinance to award them.

The city economic and development office has been tasked to come up with programs that would attract investors and transform non-performing assets into profitable ones.

“We will study the possibility of transforming real properties owned by the local government into business sites. I hope that this will also address the exorbitant rental rates of business spaces in the city,” he said.

In terms of environmental protection, the local official stressed the need to strengthen awareness of disaster resilience and preparedness, enforcement of environmental laws, evacuation management, reforestation, and shoreline and riverbank protection, among others.

“Nowadays, we can no longer be reactive in terms of emergencies, we should be able to perceive emergency situations and disasters,” he said.

He said that he is willing to support the efforts to go after illegal loggers and harvesters in close partnership with the police.

For infrastructure development as a driving force for economic growth, the mayor reported their completed projects, including the city tourism center, and upcoming ones such as the Calbayog City Port Development Project, public market, and five more big-ticket projects totaling P656 million.

The mayor also presented their development plans for their tourist destinations and the new legislative building.