Town’s revenue collection up, health services improved

INCREASED revenue generation and improved health services were the highlights of the State of the Municipality Address (Soma) which Barili Mayor Marlon Garcia delivered on Friday afternoon.

Garcia also made a commitment to pursue a “Zero Criminality” campaign in Barili town located around 58 kilometers west of Cebu City as a boost to their “Barili: Beauty and Beyond” tourism branding.

“Change is definitely here. More than a year ago, the Barilinhons stood up to seize their destiny as a people. Anyone would have thought that fifteen months is a long way to go, but here we are now, gathered once again after that momentous event. A year ago, we were gathered in victorious celebration,” Garcia said in his message, a copy of which was received by Cebu Daily News on Friday night.

Among those who attended Garcia’s Soma were his father and former third district Rep. Pablo Garcia and his sister, now third district Rep. Gwen Garcia.

Mayor Garcia reported to his constituents that 14 months under his leadership, Barili town, a second class town in west Cebu, has almost doubled their 2015 collection of P1.8 million. Their 2016 collections reached P3.2 million.

He said that from January to August 2017 alone, they already exceeded their 2016 collection, but he did not provide data on their excess collection.

In the area of health, Garcia said, they already bided out a P9.5-million project for the construction of their municipal hospital that will complement the province-run Barili District Hospital.

Another P10 million for the hospital construction project was also included in the 2018 allocation of the Department of Health, he added.

“This will be equipped with modern hospital beds, emergency room lights and facilities, X-ray machines, ECG, ultra sound machine and other necessary laboratory equipment,” Garcia said.

“(But) while we take care of those who are sick, we put in preventive measures so that people, especially our children, will not get sick and to prevent them from being malnourished,” he added.

Garcia said this is the reason why they allocated P2.3 million this year for medicines and anti-rabies vaccines that are made available in Regional Health Units (RHUs) “regardless of political affiliations.”

They also acquired two new vehicles worth P1.7 million and 22 laptops that were distributed to the health centers.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) also set aside P2.5 million for implementation of the agency’s Supplemental Feeding Program in their town.