In the starting year of my 4th term as Mayor of the City of Butuan, I bring the same love for this job and commitment to the people of Butuan, that I had when I was first sworn-in in 1992,
This time, the commitment extends beyond the present to preparing our future.
Because we have laid firm foundation, we are not forever chasing today's crises, but are able to focus on building for tomorrow.

We could not attain economic growth without strengthening our base, our smallest government unit, which is the barangay. So we focused on building barangay halls, health centers, basketball courts, day care centers and barangay stage, all of which we required every barangay to have, so that our people can truly experience and participate being part of government.

With 95 % of our barangays now having these facilities, we are starting to build multi-purpose covered courts to be made available in all barangays.

We are making our rural barangays more accessible through extensive construction of farm to market roads.

We are improving public service with our new City Hall and Butuan Medical Center. We are taking dramatic and pioneering steps to eliminate informal settling with 68 homeowners associations and subdivisions, housing more than 9 thousand families. We were able to clear the riverbanks under the bridge of shanties and relocate 200 families in decent houses in Pagatpatan in partnership with Gawad Kalinga and Habitat for Humanity.

But all these are the accomplishments of all of us. Our dynamic group of City Councilors, businesses big and small, non-government organizations, citizens young and old, people's organizations, and an activist city government with city departments, their heads of offices and staff.

We all had a hand in our success, and I thank God for His blessings. I also thank you, our people and our City Councilors for your support, years of hard work, and commitment to service.

Ladies and gentlemen, we know that our City is best served by having the courage to see what can be, and the determination to make that vision, reality.

We have prepared the basics in the past. Today, we begin the path to the future.
Our first avenue is to fortify peace and order, by investing more in public safety, with a yearly P4.8 million assistance to our police office.

Our peace and order statistics say that we reduced our crime rate by 4 percent.
We strived to increase police coverage and response by establishing 7 Community Police Assistance Centers (COMPAC) in critical areas of Ambago, Butuan Bus Terminal, Baan Km. 3, Ampayon, Bit-os, Ong Yiu and Butuan City Police Office.

In the meantime, for this year, we have budgeted for 6 patrol vehicles, one for each district and two for the Butuan City Police Central Office to increase our police mobility.
A safe environment invites economic growth; infrastructure makes it possible.
For more than a decade, we Butuanons, lobbied for a new bridge to support our City's fast-paced development.

Our persistent and non-stop effort, gained us our almost 2 billion, 11 kilometer 2nd Magsaysay Bridge that will link the Surigao-Butuan and Iligan-Cagayan-Butuan City roads.
On the pipeline is our Butuan-Agusan del Sur-Surigao via Esperanza road, and eventually to include the Butuan to Bukidnon Road.

Moreover, we are going to complete our circumferential roads to interlink far flung barangays.
Meanwhile, we took care of our urban streets of T. Claudio, Montalban, and Mahogany. Capitol Drive and Ong Yiu residents are free from flooded streets due to overflowing canals, with the construction of drainage systems.

We are going to follow the design of a highly-urbanized city by Architect Palafox for our walkways, roads and signage. And I promise you this: we shall concrete all roads in Butuan City in the days to come.

Even as we begin to develop our uptown district, this year, we are going to focus on beautification of our downtown urban center. We started with the improvement of Montilla Boulevard Canal into Montilla Boulevard Walk. We will continue to introduce tiles and decorative pavers for our city sidewalks.

For this, I would like to thank once again our Sangguniang Panlungsod for backing me up on this project and all other projects we have undertaken for the improvement of our city and people.

At this point, I thank our people of Butuan for the support you have given our President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her vision for our country's development. In turn, our President has promised us another huge project - our Butuan Inland Port/Major Port.

Our President herself has instructed the National Economic Development Authority or NEDA, during her last visit, to fund the feasibility study of our soon-to be realized P7 billion major port, with facilities of international standards; which I hope will be started within her term.
With the 2nd bridge and the Inland Port or major port, there is no stopping our City's progress.
Finally, we are going to require 10-20 hectares of lot on the east and west boundaries of Agusan del Sur and Buenavista, to serve as terminals so that 20 to 30 years from now, we will enjoy fast, reliable and safe Light Rail Transit System and a decongested city streets.
Whether we like it or not, this will be the transportation system that we will need in the future, and we shall be ready for it.

With these infrastructure foundations underway, we focused our energy on putting more Butuanons to work; so that they will have enough income to feed, clothe, and shelter their families.

To draw in more investors, we continued to provide tax holiday to 7 new and expanding businesses with total investment of P105 million.
In addition, a proposal on the operation of Call Center is being finalized with a projected 1,500 job opportunities.

Also, we allocated P3 million to be used as financial assistance to applicants for overseas employment to help them defray the cost of processing.

In support to the private sector, we shall strengthen partnerships with the Butuan City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Butuan Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and other business groups and non-government organizations for a unified development direction.
New economy investments create a path to the future, but building on core industries is the platform for producing jobs for today. That's one reason we continue to support agriculture based industries.

Right now, we are undertaking business matching for wholesaler buyers and producers of agricultural products through the City Agricultural Integrated Council.
We are currently developing the Oil Palm industry which is expected to generate additional 1,000 jobs and millions in income.

Our cassava plantation is expected to earn farmers P50,000-P75,000/hectare, with a ready market that could earn them additional income.

Our efforts on rice production have gained for us a surplus of 789 M.T in palay production, from deficit of last year. If we make this a trend, we will be supplying rice to other parts of the country.

While we endeavor to improve our economy, we do not neglect our social responsibility.
We continued to develop new neighborhoods and improve existing ones. Last year, we relocated 690 families in six new housing associations and subdivisions.

In Pagatpatan , we have a new community taking shape through Balangayan Butuan Program. 143 families transferred to their new house and lot last year.

This year, Gawad Kalinga pledges to build 50 more homes, aside from those that are donated by the private sector. Habitat for Humanity will build 60 houses. Our president has also given P2 million for the PGMA Village and so with Senator Villar who gave PI million for additional houses.

This is the fruit of our determined effort to bring in more people to support this program.
A few years back, we could not imagine this possible.

For this term, we have opened the doors and our ears to our people through our People's Day. In the span of six months, I have talked directly to more than a thousand of our constituents. I intend to meet face to face with more of our people in the coming months.

Butuan City, with our rich history should be the magnet for arts and culture. Continuing in that direction, we shall build a 12 thousand seat coliseum that shall be the venue of cultural and other activities. The structure will rest on an approximate 6 hectare lot, with facilities and amenities that shall rival those found in big cities.

Our city's health care services take care of our people from conception to old age.
As a result, maternal mortality and infant mortality rates are continuously declining.

Our Satellite Medical Clinic at Dulag, granted by the Culion Foundation of Spain caters to the needs of the flocking clients averaging 120-150 persons per clinic week. The Foundation will give us another clinic to be tentatively relocated at Barangay Bilay. We will provide these clinics with facilities like ambulance and a resident doctor for emergency cases.

Working for a clean environment, we will set up the Material Recovery Facility in all barangays and we will finish our Dumalagan Landfill for a safe and environmentally sound waste disposal system.

If we are to have a truly progressive city, we must also continue to improve our workforce. We need to start with our children and improve the knowledge base all the way up to our adult workforce.

Thus, we increased our Special Education Fund which is 20% of our Real Property Tax collection by P600,000. This we used for the construction of schools/classrooms and the 40 city paid teachers' salaries and wages.

For our preschool children, we have 107 Day Care Centers for our 86 barangays, surpassing the required number by 25%.

For our street children we have , "Kangyatan hong Kabataan," a mobile school.
For child laborers, we continue our Ga'am Bata/Child Labor Program/Balik Eskwela Program.
For our children with special needs, we have the Tuloy Aral Walang Sagabal (TAWAG) which won in the League of Cities Best Practices Awards.

Another emerging priority for education is to raise community literacy rates.
134 people belonging to our Lumad community in Pianing can now count, read and write through our literacy program.

We gave support to students who cannot pay for college education through the Barangay Scholarship Program and the City Scholarship Program, graduating a total of 94 students. At the end of the current school year, 54 more scholars are expected to graduate.

We allocated P2.5 M for tuition of students working through our Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES).

Lastly, we completed the Construction of the 15.5 M Butuan City Library with funding support from Congressman Hon. Leovigildo Banaag.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, Tomorrow will start today.
The challenge is to make the present a springboard for the future, where today's initiatives will build the pillars of tomorrow's generation.
So please join me in envisioning Butuan's future, a future for the children of today.
To reiterate, a few years from now, we shall see:
Circumferential roads to interlink our barangays;
A downtown urban district with fully concrete roads and paver walkways and pavements;
A new and flourishing uptown area to accommodate our expanding population;
A modern Butuan City Inland Port;
A 10 to 12-thousand seater Butuan City Coliseum;
An ultra modern railway transit system;
A fully computerized governance system;

A future of highly skilled, competent, sought after human resource able to compete with the best of the world and a Butuan without informal settlers.
In the course of fulfilling our dreams and objectives for our City, we must never forget to call upon the Almighty Father, our Ultimate Provider and the source and summit of our strength in doing our roles as servants of the public.

He will be the source and center of all our endeavors and decisions.

Friends, I ask you to join me in creating our city of the future. Let us believe that we can attain our vision. Let us believe on ourselves, because if we will not, then who will?
With all of us working together, we can fulfill this vision of tomorrow, today.

Salamat Kadiyaw!