Nanay's legacy

…(H)anggang dito na lamang po kami…(pero) bago po kami mag-retire gusto po naming maabot ang aming mga pangarap, ang pangarap ng lahat ng mga Kapampangan na sana ang ating lalawigan ay siya’ng maging pinakamaunlad sa buong Pilipinas.

A virtual valedictory Gov. Lilia G. Pineda delivered last Friday at the presentation of the inception plan Pampanga Megalopolis: Toward a Visions for the Pampanga Growth Triangle, which she hoped to actualize before her term ends less than three years from now.    

“That is why we are now on a fast track mode,” she said, looking at the legacy she would leave the Kapampangans that, she hoped, would not only be lasting but one of “high impact,” of “sure success,” and with “quick and responsive results.”

A legacy to leave her people, come to think of it, should be last thing in the governor’s mind. Not for anything else, but for the fact that she has already bequeathed to her cabalens one that is brilliant as to be awe-inspiring, and rock-solid as to be enduring, to wit:

Good Governance.

Not even the slightest murmur of corruption has been whispered in the governor’s direction. Not in her three terms as Lubao mayor, not in her sojourn at the provincial board. Not in her governorship. Clean, as clean can ever be.  

At the plus-plus side of the governmental spectrum is sound fiscal management translating to hundreds of millions of pesos in savings, balanced with continuing program, projects and services for the people.

Already, the Pineda administration is hailed as having caused the construction of more roads, bridges, school buildings, and other infra facilities than all the previous governors combined.

Quarry income.

Revenues from the quarry industry are already nearing the P2 billion mark – over two years ahead of the target date set at the end of Pineda’s third term as governor.

Unprecedented, truly a hard act to follow. Especially with cuentas claras as the express policy in the collections.

Investing in peace.

At a recent event in Camp Olivas, PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa opened his keynote speech with a direct address to Pineda – “Ma’am gusto ko pong maging provincial director ng Pampanga” – gushing how the governor provided the local police for all their needs in equipment, morale and even for their personal and family matters.        

With Pineda at the helm, the provincial peace and order council is as much active as interactive in maintaining a climate free from fear in the whole province.

So what about the shabu laboratories recently raided in Magalang and Arayat? Proof positive of the police hard at work to stamp out the drug problem in Pampanga that is, unarguably, even worse in many other parts of the country.    

For the rehab of drug dependents, the provincial government had dedicated two buildings at the Central Luzon Drug Rehabilitation Center in Magalang.  

Heart of service.

Government district hospitals were long derided as “Mona Lisa” facilities, after the lyrics of that Nat King Cole song “…they just lie there, and they die there” meant for those hospitals’ patients.

Not with Pampanga’s 10 district and one provincial hospitals though, with the governor rehabilitating them with new facilities, equipment, medicines, doctors and health practitioners.     

The universal coverage of PhilHealth in Pampanga, coupled with re-energized barangay health workers and the so-called “Nanay nurses” further assured the complete well-being of the Kapampangan.

Along with scholarships for the poor, the expansion of higher education opportunities was pursued with subsidies to public schools and initiatives in the establishment of satellite campuses – in Sto. Tomas and Porac towns, and soon in Lubao too – of the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University.

The 4^th Commandment makes a core value of the Pineda administration. While the national government – the past dispensation, that is -- stalled on the cash gift to centenarians, Pineda speedily caused the passage of the ordinance gifting P100,000 to cabalens passing the century mark, and later reducing the cut-off age to 95.

And more, much more.

Pampanga ranked as one of the Top 10 provinces in the whole country in terms of economic development makes the greatest testament to the Pineda administration’s excellence at governance. Aye, there is her legacy right there.

As it has been when this paper made Pineda its Woman of the Year, barely six months into her governorship, to wit:

2010 MAY as well be “Year of the Mother” for the Province of Pampanga with the ascendancy of Gov. Lilia Garcia Pineda. 

In all her public incarnations – mayor, board member, and now governor – as much as in her private persona, motherhood has come to be the very definition of Lilia Pineda: its full meaning finding expression in her singular efforts to promote the health and well-being of her people. The endearing sobriquet “Nanay Baby” as much a manifestation of the reciprocal respect and esteem her people hold her in, as a testament to the nurturing care she unceasingly provides them.

The beloved Indu ning Kapampangan. What greater legacy than that?