Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte said Dabawenyos are the city’s greatest strength as she rated the city’s overall performance to 11, long before she delivers the state of the city address (SOCA).
Mayor Duterte bared this during the Special Hours program of 87.5 Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) on Monday, November 15.
Replying to questions from the media, she said, “In general, ang performance nato sa (the performance of the) City of Davao is really good. Before the pandemic, we’re the premier city in Mindanao. Makigtigi ta sa mga dagkong lungsod didto sa Luzon ug sa Visayas (we compete with the big cities of Luzon and the Visayas).
The mayor attributed this to the deep love of Dabawenyos to their city and their trust and confidence in the local government.
“As a Dabawenyo, duna koy bias (I am biased). We are the best city and we are very good. Of course, naa ta sa 11, taga Davao man ta (we are at 11 because we’re from Davao). Walay taga Davao mo-put down sa sarili nyang syudad (No Dabawenyo would put down his or her city),” Mayor Duterte said.
She continued, “Our strength is the people, the way we believe in discipline, and the way we understand ngano kinahanglang maging disiplinado (why we need to be disciplined). We show love to our country by taking care of our city. Ang weakness nato? Wala man kaayo nahuna-hunaang weakness sa Dabawenyo (Our weakness? I can’t think of any weakness of Dabawenyos). We are strong, we will not break.”
Mayor Duterte said her SOCA will serve as her valedictory address, which will highlight her administration’s milestones and achievements since 2016.
The date, according to her, has yet to be determined as her speech content is currently being expanded.
She admitted that Dabawenyos may be in low morale due to the pandemic, but she added the city will slowly reopen so that businesses can recover.
“I recently asked a retailer noh nga kumusta na sila (how they are doing). Because of alert level 3 and I’m sure because of alert level 2, they are doing steady daw, good but not on 2019 level. So what we want to do is go back to their level sa 2019 so that we can start from there going up again,” Mayor Duterte added.
Davao City was recently feted as the Top Performing Local Government Unit in Real Property Tax Collection under the city category. The city government collected P2,260,636,000 or 190.95 percent real property tax collection efficiency, exceeding its P 1,183,883,000 target collection for the year 2020.
The tax collection efficiency earned recognition not only for the City Treasurer’s Office but also the City Assessors Office for its comprehensive assessment of real properties in support of the Revenue Generation Program of the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) Region 11. The CTO, CAO, and Mayor Duterte also received plaques for their support of the program.CIO
