TO SUSTAIN HER PRIORITIES

UNDERSCORING that a new day has dawned on Dagupan, Mayor Belen T. Fernandez who was sworn into office last Thursday, June 30, warned that the city government under her watch will have no room for the corrupt, thieves and plunderers in the past, today and in the future.

Fernandez issue the stern warning shortly after she took her oath of office from Presiding Judge Genoveva Maramba of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 54, before thousands of her supporters who packed the CSI Stadia in Lucao.

Judge Maramba also administered the oaths of office to reelected Vice Mayor Bryan Kua, Councilors Jeslito Seen, Dennis Canto and Michael Fernandez.

Fernandez said she will continue to be uncompromising in corruption cases as she warned that friendship can never be invoked to escape culpability.

“You know who Mayor Belen Fernandez is. Foremost to me is clean, honest, truthful and responsible government. If you follow what is right, we are at peace and have no quarrel,” she intoned.

She also minced no words against those who abused their power under the previous administration. “For the city government to move forward, those who committed wrong must now admit their wrong-doing.”

The new mayor said while she has forgiven those who shamed and ridiculed her with fake news, she cannot forget how these same people abused people and raided the city coffers at the same time citing the instances when some residents were denied the ayuda due them at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fernandez said based on what the city had gone through, she will focus on keeping her constituents safer from further effects of the pandemic, put Dagupan’s economy in order, provide better health services, ease the worsening garbage problem, improve flow of traffic in downtown area, make tourism in the city vibrant and build more infrastructures to mitigate flooding in the barangays.

In a talk to newsmen after her inaugural address, Fernandez said she will seek to restore the Waste to Energy project to solve the waste disposal problem but which the Lim administration rejected.

Meanwhile, she welcomed the ordinance granting three-year moratorium in the payment of yearly fees by 2,500 tricycle drivers and operators from 2022 to 2025 and the ordinance making the scholarship program of the city accessible to all qualified sons and daughters of poor families of Dagupan by scrapping examination as mode of choosing the scholars, and raising its budget from P60 million to P200 million.

Fernandez said she will support to creation of clusters of barangays: ‘One  Bonuan’, ‘One-Island Barangays’, ‘One Downtown Barangays’, ‘One-Eastern Barangays’, ‘One Mid-City Barangays’ to enhance development and promotion of tourism, traffic management, health care, public safety, livelihood and employment.

In parting, Fernandez said: “Pagtibayan natin ang ating pagkakapit-bisig sa pag-angat ng lungsod ng Dagupan tungo sa tunay na kasaganaan.” (Leonardo Micua)

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