Evasco has been credited for making Maribojoc one of the better run local government units not only in Bohol but throughout the country as well. Under his stewardship, Maribojoc was one of the 10 local government units to receive the Galing Pook award for 2011 for its Cadastral Survey and Simultaneous Systematic Adjudication Project. The project enabled 800 land owners to own titles to the land they have been occupying for decades and resolved long-standing boundary conflict with neighboring towns. For two consecutive years, in 2010 and 2011, Maribojoc was conferred the Seal of Good Housekeeping by the Department of the Interior and Local Government under the late Secretary Jesse Robredo. Evasco’s son also quit a high-paying job in the Middle East to assist the mayor in the rehabilitation of their devastated town. Now that hes mayor, the last thing he wants is to add to the problems of his constituents faced with the worst tragedy of their lives. Hes a priest, but this didnt stop him from joining the communist underground to fight a dictator. The former rebel priest, twice a political detainee during the dark years of fallen dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ martial rule, is now getting the flak for squabbling with PNRC chairman former Senator Richard Gordon. Social media can be unforgiving, but Evasco said he would rather focus on rebuilding Maribojoc. The strong-willed, 69-year-old mayor said he has nothing against the PNRC, only the politicians behind it. “Of course it is being used by politicians like Gordon,” he said. “I have also served as director of Red Cross Davao City chapter for some time. I have nothing against Red Cross, but I am against their system because of some influence of the politicians behind it,” Evasco said in a Facebook comment posted on his behalf by his daughter-in-law Jasmin Delola-Evasco. We could have met halfway but they [Red Cross] insisted on their own random distribution. The result is nagkagulo (bedlam). Everybody was lining up. There was no order,” he explained. He asked the Red Cross to turn over the relief goods to the local government for equitable distribution, a system that he and the rest of town officials agreed upon when they convened the municipal risk reduction and disaster coordinating council immediately after the earthquake. Gordon and Evasco, after all, campaigned under one political umbrella in the May elections: the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). He was Duterte’s chief of staff and trusted aide when the latter become mayor of Davao City in 1988. He served the Duterte administration in various capacities until he decided to come home to Maribojoc for good in 2006 — even if it meant physical separation from his wife and two children who opted to stay behind in Davao City. Duterte personally handed a P1 million check to Evasco on Saturday, October 19. It was P500,000 more than what the Davao mayor had given the other devastated towns of Bohol. In December last year, long before the Red Cross controversy, he told Rappler that he will not be seeking any public office and will focus on current passion: propagating organic farming. But for now, hes helping rebuild his town. “A lot of civic and non-governmental organizations are coursing their assistance through us and we are seeing that these reach every affected family,” the mayor said. “We can agree on a mechanism on how to distribute relief goods coming from their end, he added. And yes, the Red Cross can still come. rappler/nation/42168-bohol-mayor-earthquake
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:56:25 +0000
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