“No President has shown so much concern for the province [than Ms Arroyo].” – Mt. Province Governor Maximo Dalog
Read the Inquirer story here. Even though I really dislike Gloria Arroyo (here and here), I must admit that Governor Dalog is correct on this one. To her credit, Gloria must have visited Mt. Province more times than all the Presidents combined. For a province which has been ignored by past national administrations, such visits are a great deal. And one cannot make that many visits without getting a glimpse of and expressing concern for the problems confronted by the province and its people.
So she’s not all bad. But let’s not also forget that she cheated her way to the presidency, that her administration is corrupt, and that her human rights record is beyond terrible.
She’d been visiting the province maybe to ensure that most of it’s inhabitants are still suffering. Has there been improvement of these total five visits of her presidency which the Governor bragged about, in these areas?: 1) four thousand out of 40 thousand hungry children 12 year old and below? 2) 20 or less out of 100 children who are not attending elementary education due to poverty (maybe?) 3) and our ever favorite topic, the ever dilapidated Halsema road. As Eddie Igorot or Layala alluded to in their comments about Halsema, I hope that portion of highway will be nicely paved “tapno nalamuyot” ti biyahe no agyasyar ni TruBlue idiay Payeo, Besao soon, otherwise, helicopter is the only option to see the beauty of the province.