Lamitan mayor bags CSC Pagasa citation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - A mayor trying since 2013 to set free her 45 constituent-barangays from the bondage of armed conflicts and underdevelopment received a “Regional Pagasa Award” from the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

Lamitan City Mayor Rosita Furigay was the only local executive in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to receive such an award during the commission’s 116th anniversary celebration last Wednesday.

The anniversary program in ARMM of the CSC’s 116th founding anniversary was held at the 300-seater Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex in Cotabato City.

Furigay is now in her second term as mayor of Lamitan City, capital of Basilan, an island province in the autonomous region.

No one from among local politicians dared to contest her bid for a second term during the May 9, 2016 elections owing to her popularity among Lamitan City’s more than 40,000 registered voters, whose barangays she helped rise from poverty and devastations wrought by armed conflicts.

Sources from CSC on Saturday told The STAR Furigay qualified for the commission’s Pagasa award this year owing to her feats in governance and for promoting peace and development among Muslim and Christian communities in Lamitan City.

There were dramatic improvements in the economy of Lamitan City in the past three years, ushered in by the socio-economic, fiscal and administrative cooperation between its local government unit and the office of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman.

Hataman's costly infrastructure projects in Lamitan City are being managed jointly by ARMM Public Works Secretary Don Loong and engineer Soler Undug, chief of the Basilan District Engineering Office.

Undug had also received the "Outstanding Public Service Exemplar Award" from the CSC-ARMM for having accomplished major infrastructure projects of the Hataman administration in different towns in Basilan in months past.

The Hataman administration is presently constructing a government operations complex in Barangay Sta. Clara in Lamitan City, where all provincial offices of line agencies in ARMM are to relocate.

Furigay said the special citation she received from the CSC emboldened her more to work harder for her Muslim and Christian constituents.