Dumaguete mayor says: President Duterte is sincere, genuine

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — Dumaguete City Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo said President Rodrigo Duterte was sincere in his pronouncements and shows his genuine love of his country and countrymen.

“He wants action and good results of realization of his advocacies. He wants to leave the Filipino people with a lasting legacy of peace, order, comfort. His ad libs were longer than his prepared speech and he is not used to teleprompter but is comfortable when he had to ad lib. Obviously, he wrote his own speech, at least 80 percent of it,” Remollo said.

These were among the observations of the mayor who attended the first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Duterte Monday afternoon.

What caught the attention of the mayor were the President’s pronouncements to pursue inter-island linkage projects that reminded him of his proposals and dreams for the whole Visayas to be connected with bridges and tunnels to traverse the mountains of the two provinces of the Negros Island Region (NIR).

In the SONA, Duterte was pushing for the acceleration of infrastructure spending to improve national roads and bridges and implementing the Mindanao logistics infrastructure network and other road network master plans.

Remollo recalled that his proposal which was presented to a few senators and congressmen during the campaign period was to connect Negros Occidental to Guimaras and Iloilo and then Negros Oriental to connect to Cebu, Bohol then to Maasin, Leyte, the birth place of President Duterte and perhaps to Siquijor.

He said this would surely create a tourism corridor in the region, thus, decongest traffic in Metro Manila. Remollo was made to understand this proposal was presented to the President by his relatives particularly the Veloso clan and some senators.

His greatest concern was to connect Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental through a skeletal highway that will traverse the mountains of two provinces.

What struck him the most is that he vowed to even kill drug lords, drug users and pushers. But at the same time he has opened his arms to the CPP/NPA/NDF and even the secessionist movement in Mindanao to stop all the armed conflict, end centuries of mistrust and warfare, end decades of ambuscades and skirmishes, in calling them to also respond.

In his opening statement, the president started right when he said “vindictiveness is not in my system.” This clearly distinguishes himself from his predecessors, and shows that he wants to be a healing president by espousing peace even to the groups who are established to overthrow the government, Remollo said.

The president announced that he does not want to be delayed with his plans by pointing fingers and listing all the sins of the past administrations. But at the same time, Duterte said he will not condone past wrongdoings and vowed to prosecute if evidence warrants.

According to Remollo, this is the influence of the president’s legal background. —(FREEMAN)