SIEGLINDE FLORENCIO T. MONGOSO, JR. BORROMEO-BULAONG REUEL M. OLIVER Editor Editorial Consultants Vol. 6, No. 4 | October - December 2014 JASON B. NEOLA JOSE V. COLLERA Senior Writer XERES RAMON A. GAGERO A Quarterly Magazine of the SYLRANJELVIC C. VILLAFLOR City Government of Naga Photographers Bicol, Philippines RAFAEL RACSO V. VITAN Layout and Design ISSN 2094-9383 JOHN G. BONGAT ANSELMO B. MAÑO City Mayor Website Administrator NELSON S. LEGACION City Vice Mayor JOSE B. PEREZ This magazine is published ALLEN L. REONDANGA by the City Government of Naga, thru UAINT AND PAUL JOHN F. BARROSA the Ciy Publication Office and the Q Technical Advisers City Events, Protocol and ALLURING. With its Public Information Office, rooftops breezed by with editorial office at City Hall Compound, the cool morning sun, ALDO NIÑO I. RUIVIVAR J. Miranda Avenue, Naga City 4400 Naga, then known as MAUREEN S. ROJO Philippines Staff Assistants Nueva Caceres in the Tel: +63 54 472-2136 Spanish colonial times, Email: [email protected] Web: www.naga.gov.ph charms visitors with its mixture of an ancient cathedral (right), French-architectured seminary, a university that had been the oldest school for girls in the Far East (foreground, right of center), narrow avenues, and three plazas bounded by modern edifices and endless rows of food chains, department stores and shops, residential houses, inns and hotels. PHOTO BY PAI AGUILAR MAYOR’S MESSAGE TABLE OF CONTENTS Bullish on the 3 Future of Naga Rediscovering 33 Nick Joaquin CHRISTMAS PAGE Nagueña as 2014 35 Outstanding Teacher of the Philippines Kamundagan Festival 5 Bongat delivers 38 report on State of 10 Santa Fun Walk our Children The “Naga SMILES to the World” Naga hosts 1st 40 Regional PWD logo is composed of the two COVER STORY Summit baybayin characters, na and ga. IT and BPO facilities 11 growing big in Naga SP AND Na, shaped like a mountain, LEGISLATION provides a strong foundation for the Stronger and More 17 Vibrant Naga in 2015 Narra tree which grew abundantly Naga’s Promising Making the best along the Naga River while a zigzag 21 bus stop 41 better for our line denotes the majestic Malabsay children Robredo, Bongat Falls. 22 dialogue with Entreps Barangay Budgeting: 42 The way to efficient Go Negosyo to rise governance Ga, shaped like a farmer’s plow, 23 at Naga City People’s Mall Wastewater is symbolic of the Nagueño’s 43 Management agricultural roots and hardworking BCS: Doing more than Ordinance 24 Expected personality. The baybayin Naga characters FOREIGN 44 rest on a wave-like element which RELATIONS represents the Naga River and the serpent, which is read in Sanskrit Mayor Bongat 26 dialogues with OFWs as naga. on migration concerns in Qatar and Italy This new branding for Naga, \ launched in 2010 by the dynamic EDUCATION, Bongat administration, envisions a CHILDREN AND more livable city that is world-class. LITERATURE A harvest of 31 award-winning books by Bicol writers 1 OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2014 STUDENT TABLE OF CONTENTS ACHIEVEMENT TESTS Greater Gains, Appropriations 46 Committee Wraps Up 53 Superior Score Budget Report CALAMITY HEALTH ASSISTANCE CHO expects 100% Tabang sa Tugang 47 Child Vaccination 55 Program compliance The “An Maogmang Lugar“ logo is METRO NAGA an attempt to capture Naga as we want Dengues Cases in it to be – a city that is progressive and 48 Naga down by 83% DEVELOPMENT yet environment-friendly, where the people freely participate in the day- Big Dreams of MNDC AGRICULTURE 57 Start Here to-day affairs of the government, and AND LIVESTOCK where culture and arts are flourishing. Investment Forum 58 opens Tourim Circuit Bicol Corn Program for Investors The stylized design of “NAGA” 49 Implementors represents the city’s aggressive march Honored towards modernization and progress. SPORTS The sky-blue background, the Narra tree, and the Naga River represent our Nagueño Wakeboard 61 Team Shines in Phukit people’s desire for an ecologically- Thailand balanced community. The ring of people surrounding the entire design shows the Nagueños’ Ruby Inflicts Naga participatory mechanism which is part 50 farmers with P7-M losses in crops and parcel of the city’s way of doing things. It also shows the people’s Clean Meat for concern and unity in everything that is 51 Nagueños good for the city. CONGRESSIONAL Naga hosts Luzon Today, the city, as Maogmang Lugar, 63 Qualifying Leg of aims to portray more than a happy DISTRICT Batang Pinoy place but a happy people who are the true beneficiaries of everything good Leni turns over boats, 52 ask fisherfolk to shun that is happening in the city. illegal nets OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2014 2 Bullish on the Future of Naga MAYOR JOHN G. BONGAT We have every reason to be bullish development at the corner of Roxas in 2015, the year of the Poor for the Avenue and Almeda Highway. Catholic Church, and the year of the They will start constructing their wooden goat in the lunar calendar. 3-storey mall, with state-of-the- According to the Chinese, 2015 art cinemas, 2 hotels and one BPO promises to be an abundant year for building, employing thousands all of us. from construction to operation. Vista Land is reported to be acquiring the True to our word at the start of my property beside GSIS to put up its term in 2010 that we will embark own mall just beside its 1,000-unit on a more aggressive investment Camella Homes project in Barangay promotion campaign to “grow” the Del Rosario. local economy, we have been able to nurture local enterprises while Naga, along with Metro Naga, broke forging new economic inroads. into the “Next Wave Cities” rankings in 2013, emerging as one of the From 2010 to 2014, City Treasury country’s top 10 BPO destinations, records show that an average of paving the way for the entry of the 1,334 new firms, mostly local, had BPO industry in our beloved city. been set up in Naga each year. The We now have four IT parks/centers, Office of the Building Official reports three of them coming over the past construction of an annual average of two years alone—all developed by 122 new commercial, industrial and local businessmen. These now house institutional buildings during the IBM which is continuing to expand same period. A conservative total of its non-voice or back office operations, P6.2B in private investments poured and call centers Concentrix and into the local economy over the past Stellar. 4 years during my first and into my second term as Mayor of Naga. All this has made us the third Most Competitive City in the Philippines The country’s top property developers in 2014, sparking the creation of have given us their vote of confidence. thousands of new jobs for our fellow Following the lead of SM, Gaisano Nagueños, and the #1 City, out of 144 along Panganiban where a host of nationwide, in government efficiency. new businesses have risen, is opening To provide more meaningful jobs in summer. especially for our semi-skilled Robinsons workers, we are now in negotiations Land of the with a Japanese firm to anchor our Gokongwei first-ever PEZA-accredited industrial Group is set park. If the BPO industry in Naga is to enter the catering to mostly college graduates picture and or skilled labor force, the export has drawn processing zone we are pushing to up plans for be developed in Naga will absorb a mixed-use young people, who are unskilled, but will become employable. More jobs mean more income to families, higher purchasing power, higher revenues for local industries, and of course higher revenues for your city. To complement these exciting Project in Pili, whose approval at the developments and mindful of our tenet regional level we fought for tooth and that “An Maogmang Lugar” ultimately nail in previous RDC meetings. Again, can be measured by the quality of life with the help of Cong Leni, an initial of our people, the city government P600M outlay is provided for in the has embarked on a P600M capital 2015 budget to fund land acquisition, investment program for 2015. During and detailed engineering and design. its December 22 meeting, the City Development Council which I chair Taken together, we are seeing a more greenlighted that spending program, robust and vibrant local economy that endorsed it to the Sangguniang will bring about an inclusive economic Panlungsod which approved the growth not only for Naga, or Metro same. The package will allow the city Naga, but for the entire region as well. government to clean up the Balatas Surely, these are the fruits of the city’s dump, rehabilitate the area and investment in good urban governance provide a permanent solution to our that we have cultivated and grown to solid waste disposal problem-- which greater heights. These developments will result in the more productive prove that once local and national use of the surrounding leaders get their act areas that will together, synergy– where necessarily accelerate its the sum total is greater development. Side by “Taken together, than its parts, or one plus side, we will also establish we are seeing one is greater than two in a new city cemetery that a more robust plain speak– will happen will meet Naga’s needs and vibrant local and become the proverbial for the next two decades. rising tide that will lift all These are two of the economy that boats. The role, therefore, top urban basic services will bring about of the city’s leadership is that my administration an inclusive to hold fast and true to its has committed itself to economic growth fundamental obligation address-- so that the next not only for Naga, to bring about social administrations, what I justice, so that those mean is after 2019 because or Metro Naga, who have less in life can you will be giving me but for the entire and will benefit from another term of course, region as well.