Testimonial as Provincial Winner of Model LGU Implementing 4Ps

  

Good day to everyone, I am Councilor Jocelyn Espejo of LGU-Bayambang, Pangasinan. On behalf of our Local Chief Executive, Mayor Niña Jose-Quiambao, allow me to give this testimonial as provincial winner of the Search for Model LGU in Implementing 4Ps.

First of all, thank you for the recognition. We couldn’t have done it without DSWD’s guidance through your people on the ground, our DSWD Municipal Links.

Winning this accolade is something we didn’t expect. But we are happy to be recognized because it somehow validated all the hard work we have been doing. It has certainly brought inspiration to us in Bayambang to do even better.

It has brought us into thinking, “We must have been doing things right.”

Let me therefore take this opportunity to share with you our experience with implementing the 4Ps program.

First of all, what probably made us stand out in the entire province of Pangasinan is our LGU’s number one thrust since 2016 during the time of former mayor, Dr. Cezar T. Quiambao, and up to the second term of today’s mayor, Nina Jose-Quiambao, is none other than fighting poverty. …If not alleviating it, then actively fighting it until eliminating it, if possible.

We knew it was a somewhat ‘crazy’ fight. Who can eliminate poverty anyway when it is a multi-dimensional problem? With an LGU’s limited powers, how much can we do to make a difference?

But we did what we can do anyway with our inadequate resources within our limited capacity and limited jurisdiction.

And with such resoluteness, we made a comprehensive 10-year development plan, which eventually produced the Bayambang Poverty Reduction Plan 2018-2028. And more importantly, we acted on that plan through concrete PPAs. Furthermore, we made it a point to regularly monitor if we are still on the right track along the way.

Maybe our superpower, or our secret weapon, is not other than passionate visionary leadership.

It was all about leadership, leaders with clear vision, with transformative style.

Yes, we are lucky to have such leaders who believe in clean governance and are willing to go out of their way to get the job done.

To be honest, I haven't seen a mayor (or two succeeding mayors, in fact) who would do everything they have done to our little town, from being a backwater town to a bustling town on the brink of cityhood.

I haven't heard of a local chief executive announcing a revolution against poverty without turning communist and walks the talk by coming up with a concrete action plan, with not a leaf left unturned, and actually implement it. In fact, this grand project is something that the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) itself would confirm to be a pioneering effort nationwide.

I haven't heard of a local chief who would -- in so short a time -- get different sectors to work together to prioritize public works that would benefit the masses all at once: a decent events place, a tricycle terminal, an expanded public market, a renovated public plaza, barangay roads, barangay rural health units and police outposts, barangay halls and multi-purpose courts, a polytechnic college that offers scholarships to the disadvantaged or underprivileged, a free housing project for the indigent, emergency hotline with rescue personnel, equipment and vehicles, expanded disaster response services, digitalization of government processes, strengthened access to public information, renovation and expansion of public market, farm mechanization and a one-stop-shop farmers' app, a dairy farm, a hatchery, a central terminal, cold storages, a major farm-to-market road with bridge, a large-scale irrigation project in the works and a planned redevelopment of a long-overcrowded but ignored public cemetery.

Add to these unprecedented developments a world-class tourist attraction, a new economic zone with theme park, an agricultural complex, and a tertiary hospital, among many other projects -- all built with such speed in their private capacity and all envisioned to generate jobs and benefit a lot of ordinary people.

I haven't heard of other public officials who would willingly donate their salary for the entire year, year by year, to the community, on top of a litany of other personal donations, in the face of limited government resources.

I haven't seen someone, or a couple, who are more pro-poor in their actual output. In all of these efforts, the major beneficiaries were always the 4Ps members.

At this point, allow me to mention some of the unique innovations we've had and the sheer luck (or blessings) we were graced with in connection with our anti-poverty efforts: the creation of a special department, the Bayambang Poverty Reduction Action Team, as a coordinative body to oversee all antipoverty efforts anchored on transparent governance; the fact that our administrator was formerly connected with the Presidential Management Office and the NAPC; and the fact that our first couple are successful business folk blessed with considerable and honestly earned means and resources and, more importantly, generous hearts.

In hindsight, it turns out that what we have been doing all along is a "whole-of-system approach" to poverty alleviation.

Once again, thank you for the recognition. We hope to have inspired the rest of the LGUs in Pangasinan and the region.