Farewell Speech of

Mayor Reynaldo V. Velasco

@ Orbos Gym, Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan

12 June 2010

Championing Public Service:

My Enduring Legacy for Sta. Barbara

This is perhaps the last time that I will speak before you as mayor of this town. By a small fraction of 200 plus votes, the people of Sta. Barbara have made their choice last May 10 and by the end of this month, I will be stepping down as your chief executive.

As I look back now to the three short years that I worked as your mayor, I must admit that I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed the challenges that the town faced when I came in.  Its problems seemed too big for any leader to tackle.

The yearly flooding looked unsolvable.  It had earned for the town the title as the floating town of Pangasinan for during the monsoon months, it was almost always under water.

The empty irrigation canals during the dry months looked hopelessly unusable for these have been without water for more than 35 years.

Public school rooms were sorely lacking. Classrooms were overcrowded and without toilets.  Most of the roads to the barangays were muddy during the rainy months, dusty when the rains stopped.

So many people were poor and idle in a town where the soil was very rich.  Not a few families had no houses of their own.

I looked at these challenges not as obstacles I needed to hurdle and together, we all went ahead at meeting them head on.

As I look back, these were the same challenges that fueled my entry into politics shortly after my retirement in May 2005 after having continuously served the country for 38 years as a police and military officer. It was also my constant and unflinching love for Sta. Barbara that I returned to offer myself as a public servant with the determined pursuit and mission to make a difference in my birthplace.

In my inaugural speech on 30 June 2007, I stated: “Every waking day, we will put on one building block and we will build a town that is indeed a model for good and honest government, and a model for peace and prosperity.”

Shortly after I formally assumed office, leaders of Sta. Barbara from both the private and the government sectors, got together in Clark Freeport, and guided by experts from the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration, we went through an intensive planning session for our town.

And for the first time, anchored on my 10-Point REY VELASCO Agenda for Progress we arrived at a common vision for our town, “we envision Sta. Barbara to be the agribusiness center in the north and the gateway to the world where people are God-fearing, self-reliant, highly competitive, healthy and law-abiding, living in an ecologically balanced community, and governed by honest, competent, transparent, accountable and dedicated public officials.”

Given the fact that Sta. Barbara had very little government resources to give a new mayor the elbow room to make a dent on those formidable problems, I zealously nursed the little resources the municipality raised on its own to maximize the projects we programmed to do.

We did not limit our efforts to the wise use of the meager resources from your taxes. We went out of our way to seek partners in putting on the ground projects and programs never before attempted in our town. We are happy to say that the response has been enthusiastic, allowing us to deliver services and projects over and above what has been expected from us.

Three years have passed and records show that we, your public officials, have lived up to our avowed commitment of being honest, competent, transparent, and dedicated public officials. To the best of our ability, we delivered the promises we made during the campaign.

We fixed the irrigation dikes and dredged the rivers. The floods still came during the typhoon month of October last year, but when the rains stopped the floodwaters subsided. Calasiao is now more vulnerable to weeks under water than Sta. Barbara today.

During my term, the irrigation system has been rehabilitated from merely 945 hectares when I turn over in 2007 to 2,300 hectares of farmlands today with the remaining 1,200 hectares to have been completed in the next three years. Thanks to our partner, the National irrigation Administration led by Engr. Rey Mencias, our farmers have at least doubled their yearly earnings by raising crops year-round.  Hand in hand with the availability of irrigation water, we encouraged farmers to adopt the best farming practices whether it was on rice culture, vegetable farming or livestock and poultry raising.

As I bow out of office, I can confidently say that the taming of the two rivers, Sinucalan and Tolong that cross through our town and the quantum leap in farmers’ incomes are two of my administration’s lasting legacies.

We did equally well in building school classrooms.  When campaigning in the 2007 elections, I promised to build at least 150 classrooms or 50 every year. As my term gets to a close, we have already built and rehabilitated 300 classrooms, each one with its own toilet. My administration is proud of its legacy of building new school buildings with minimum cost, untainted by charges of kickbacks and corruption. Besides the classrooms, my administration upgraded the offices of school principals.

The school children and the town’s farming families may have been the first beneficiaries of what we have done in the last three years.

You have seen yourselves how we performed in building roads, bridges and even foot bridges. In all, we have spent millions in public works projects and acquired new heavy equipment so that the roads and bridges will not go on disrepair in succeeding years.

And for the first time in our town, we embarked on a low-cost housing project in partnership with Gawad Kalinga and other donors. To date, a total of 88 families have benefited from our housing for the poor project.

We have likewise invigorated the delivery of health care in our town especially to young mothers and their babies through increased enrolment in PhilHealth and the setting up of Botika sa Barangays. I hope to finish the municipal lying in hospital before my term ends to serve as a lasting legacy to the people of Sta. Barbara.

Our livelihood and job creation program and projects have just been taking off when my term of office is drawing to a close. I hope that even in my absence, the projects we started with the Philippine Exporters Confederation in converting our abundant water lily into stylish handicrafts, green charcoal making and the one we started with the disabled – would continue. There is no reason they should not for our partners have found buyers of what our beneficiaries produce.

Seen, however, within the context of our long-term vision and our collective mission for our town, we have only just begun.  To grow into the agribusiness center of the north, Sta. Barbara must not just be a very productive agricultural town. We have to take bolder steps to seek partners so that the abundant crops and livestock we raise will be processed and sold  to the outside world.

The international airport in Sta. Barbara is still a dream. And it’s up to the next and future leaders of this town if they pursue it to realization.

To make a long story short, the Velasco administration promised what it can deliver as a model for good governance or in layman’s term – championing public service. And I can honestly say that I delivered more than what I promised.

When it was time for me to seek for a new mandate during the last local elections, I anchored my re-election bid on my achievements and politics of performance.  All along, I believed that no amount of money could substitute for solid performance.

The result of the elections proved that I was terribly wrong. I underestimated the power of money to change the minds of voters in this town. It jolted me into realization that my best was not good enough to the majority of the people here.

A new leader may not be the best there is but he is their choice. If and when things go wrong later, they will only have themselves to blame.

Thus I console myself with these thoughts:

“To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility — these are marks of great character, maturity and graciousness.”

Looking objectively at my defeat, I find solace in the fact that in our brand of electoral democracy, being in politics could be a “thankless job” and that the people choose and get the leaders they deserve.  They get the quality of government they want.

The general frustration and surprise even from outsiders emanating from the results of the mayoralty election in Sta. Barbara was an eye-opener —- that no matter how you do well in serving your town mates and championing public service, there is a still a vast of majority who see the other way and can be swayed overnight at the expense of a brighter future for themselves and the present and next generations of Sta. Barbarans.

One hard realization of being in politics is to be “unconditional” in serving the people like Jesus Christ who gave up His life for the love of mankind.

By being “unconditional,” it means accepting the hurt of betrayal and abandonment of your supporters and constituents. It also means just doing your darn best to serve them without expecting anything in return. Believe me, when I retire at night, I always asked this question: “Are they worth serving and dying for?”

Overall, I value my principles and my three-year service in Sta. Barbara always guided by my lifelong credo that I have always followed in my life’s journey which is: “To walk in my fellow man’s step before I led — to care for others before myself — and, to do what is right regardless of the consequences.”

It is now a challenge for would-be national and local leaders to liberate further the people from the vicious cycle of traditional politics and to accept the new paradigm of being in public service.

I don’t have any regrets or rancor in my heart as I leave our beloved town of Santa Barbara. Having accomplished much in my lifetime in the arena of public service, I have nothing to be ashamed of.

I only have feelings of gratitude to all our friends and supporters after having served our people well in the last three years. I am thankful to the Lord Almighty for his gifts of life, talents, career and family.

A veteran soldier that I am, it is high time for me to fade into the sunset.

I came out of retirement from the Philippine National Police to pay back my hometown with the know-how I accumulated as a government scholar and public servant.

I have done my share of government service and paid my dues. It is time for me to enjoy in private my final retirement.

Today, I can honestly say that after 41 years of being in public service, I will submit to the collective wishes of my family — my beloved and lovely wife Fim, my son Ricky and daughter in law Kaye and their two lovely children Alex and Robin — and become a private citizen to enjoy my retirement as a full pledge husband, father, and grandfather. Perhaps, this is the other blessing you get from the Almighty who designs our path and destiny.

But don’t be sad — for retirement is just like going through another phase in one’s life. I will enjoy most of my time into farming, my first career choice before I entered the service. Life is a cycle and this is one cycle I welcome with open arms.

Rest assured, that I will continue to care, love and hold in high esteem our beloved Santa Barbara. It’s the only town that deserves everyone’s commitment, love and dedication even after retirement.

On this note, I would like to thank everyone for being part of the wonderful three years of journey to championing public service in our beloved town of Santa Barbara.

With this note, may I say, good luck, God Bless You all, farewell and adios.

Thank you Sta. Barbara!

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