By Chito Chavez
Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte admitted the city can use Davao City as a benchmark toward a more progressive and safer locality.
Despite being a small city with a smaller budget, Belmonte said Davao City can “teach many lessons to massive local government units (LGUs) like Quezon City’’ as she praised Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio for her management style and good governance.
Quezon City Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte (Mark Balmores / MANILA BULLETIN)
“Even if we are a bigger city with a much bigger budget, there really are many things to learn from Davao City which is a smaller city with a smaller budget, but with a good leadership,” Belmonte said.
Belmonte made special mention of the Davao City’s mayor her good governance which is the vital key for the peace and order and competitiveness that the city upholds.
The vice mayor described the Davao City mayor as a fearless, righteous and incorruptible leader making her a role model for other government officials.
“Inday Sara is a very compassionate leader. She was able to adopt her father’s style of maintaining peace and order, but at the same time, she incorporated her compassion as a woman. I really do admire her a lot,” she added.
Belmonte stressed that one of the lessons Quezon City should emulate from Davao City is how to “maximize our resources.”
“They were able to make a lot of things out of all the resources they have. That’s why their economy keeps on flourishing,” the vice mayor emphasized.
Citing it as worth emulating, Belmonte disclosed her plans of adopting Davao City’s emergency response practices which she deems is an effective way of responding to disasters and many kinds of emergencies.
“It is a learning experience for them because the program was arranged for us by the City of Davao through Mayor Sara Duterte. I asked this from our sister city and they immediately did it for us. I am thankful to them for allowing us to learn many things from the Davao City officials themselves,” Belmonte noted.
In November last year, Duterte-Carpio’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP) formed an alliance with Belmonte’s Serbisyo sa Bayan Party (SBP) which sealed the two leaders' partnership.
“I look forward to more partnerships with Davao because we have been helping each other to address our city’s local issues and problems. It is indeed a fruitful partnership,” Belmonte said.
Together with the officers of Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) and barangay officials, Belmonte went to Davao City for a training convention a move designed to demonstrate the city’s best practices that can be applied on QC localities.