Dumanjug: The precious jewel of southern Cebu
Dumanjug is the most promising town in the seventh district located in southwestern Cebu. It has tremendous potentials to elevate its economic status to first class economic level, at par with Argao and Dalaguete of the second congressional district.
Dumanjug's young and dynamic mayor, Gungun Z Gica, and his vice mayor and brother, Wado Z Gica, are ready to embark on leapfrogging Dumanjug's pursuit for its rightful place in Cebu's socio-economic development thrusts. Today and tomorrow, all the elective and appointive officials of Dumanjug are attending a two-day intensive and extensive leadership and strategic planning learning sessions and workshops, tackling an integrated, comprehensive, long-term and multi-sectoral socio-economic development strategy to push the progress of this town to world-class levels, being facilitated by this writer.
This is the town of the fourth governor of Cebu, the great Don Dionisio A Jakosalem, the governor who built all the roads and bridges both in the northern and southern parts of the province. He was so good that he was elected in 1909 as the president of the whole Philippines' federation of all provincial governors. He was also appointed in 1917 as secretary of the Department of Commerce and Communication by the US Governor General Francis Burton Harrison, which made him the first Filipino member of the Cabinet. This is also the town of the great lawyer, Pablo P Garcia, whose eldest daughter, Gwendolyn, is the incumbent provincial governor. Both father and daughter are former deputy speakers of the House of Representatives.
Dumanjug has tremendous potentials in tourism, as well as in agriculture and fishery. If its leaders could only unite and set aside partisan politics, it is not difficult to lead the Dumanjuganons to their proper place in the socio-economic levels, deserving of the great potentials of its more than fifty thousand people. It has no less than 37 barangays, each with rich soil and hardworking people. Its seas and rivers offer a lot of opportunities to embark on high-value marine products development strategies, if and when the people are trained with world class technology, and provided government assistance in capital infusions and marketing networks.
Dumanjug has a port, in its barangay Tangil, with daily marine transport systems to Guihulngan City in Negros Oriental. Its people can travel to both Dumaguete in the south and San Carlos City and Bacolod to the north via the Tañon Strait. Dumanjuganons can engage in inter-island trading of agricultural and marine products with Negrenses. Dumanjuganons can also go to Manila, via Dumaguete City airport, thus saving them from the horrendous traffic from Mactan airport, which would take them four hours to travel across the cities of Lapulapu, Mandaue, Cebu, Talisay, Naga, and Carcar and the towns of Minglanilla, San Fernando and Barili. Dumanjug also hosts the principal place of operations of CEBECO I, which distributes electric power in the south.
There are thousands of Dumanjuganons who are working in the Middle East, and all over Europe and the Americas. There are also thousands who are living in California, Hawaii, New York, Texas and Seattle, Washington, as well as in Australia and all over Europe. There many seafarers and maritime officials and personnel. These people are willing to help provided that the Dumanjuganons are ready to embark on massive and integrated development for the town they all cherish and love. I am helping to make this happen.
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