IGACOS Mayor honors pioneering Samal mayors

DAVAO DEL NORTE, March 9 (PIA) - - Mayor Aniano Antalan honoured his former colleagues as municipal mayors of the then three municipalities in the island during the culmination program of the 17th founding anniversary of the Island Garden City of Samal (IGACOS) on March 7 at the Penaplata Freedom Park.

“Let us remember during this celebration the mayors, who started in making this one beautiful city – Mayor David Uy of the then municipality of Babak, Mayor Galileo Obenza of the then municipality of Samal and of course your incumbent mayor, who was then the mayor of the municipality of Kaputian,” Mayor Antalan said.

He said that the people of IGACOS should take pride of this big event because it is unlikely for mayors holding their positions to agree on merging the municipalities and creating one local government unit.

“I believe that it is only IGACOS in the entire Philippines that integrated three municipalities to create one city,” he added.

He said that while others are splitting a local government unit to create another government unit, we here in IGACOS are uniting as one city.

“And we also laud Governor Rodolfo del Rosario, who was then a congressman, for initiating in the Congress the creation of IGACOS, together with the support of the Floirendos,” he said.

According to the history of IGACOS, Del Rosario authored Republic Act 8471, the law creating the city, which was signed on January 30 by then President Fidel Ramos and was approved by the people through plebiscite on March 7, 1998.

The culmination day of the 17th Araw ng IGACOS started with a parade, highlighted by the Float Competition of the barangays.

Edging out its other three contenders, Barangay Penaplata won in the float competition and received a cash prize of P 30,000. (PIA 11, Michael Uy)