(L-R)Hon. Cong. Mannix Dalipe, Hon. City Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar, WMSU Prexy Dr. Milabel Enriquez-Ho and Hon. Vice Mayor Cesar Iturralde.
Dr. Ho together with District 1 Congressman Celso L. Lobregat, District 1 City Councilor Charlie Mariano with WMSU Public Affairs Office Director Dr. Lea E. Usman.
Hon. Bong Atilano together with WMSU Prexy Dr. Milabel Enriquez Ho, PAO Director Dr. Lea E. Usman, Hon. Jihan Edding and Hon. Charlie Mariano
City Health Officer Dr. Rodelin Agbulos, Dr. Milabel Enriquez Ho, Dr. Lea E. Usman with the local officials.
The Western Mindanao State University through its president Dr. Milabel Enriquez-Ho attended the maiden inaugural session of the Sangguniang Panglungsod ng Zamboanga held last July 19, 2016.
The University together with other local government line agencies has strongly manifested support towards the newly elected Zamboanga City officials, to start with the re-elected ZC mayor Hon. Ma. Isabel climaco Salazar, Cong. Celso L. Lobregat (District 1), Cong. Manuel Jose M. Dalipe (District 2) and the newly elected 16 district councilors for districts 1 and 2.
For the first time, all the 16 councilors were given the opportunity to highlight their good intentions and plans for the city and the entire Zamboanga Peninsula for the next three years. The councilors stood proud and full of conviction in narrating specific programs intended to address wide-ranging problems e.g. socio-economic, environmental, political and health issues facing the Zamboangueños.
As an academic institution, the University sees itself as a proactive partner to all these undertakings by initially providing a good opportunity for quality education and at the same time better access to education for all.
The University furthermore supports the city council’s proposal for protecting, preserving, and maximizing the utilization of our natural resources particularly protecting wildlife and preserving watershed and mangrove areas in the identified barangays with these endangered resources.
The proposal for the conversion of the Mindanao Central Sanitarium to a Zamboanga City General Hospital cum Rehabilitation Center for drug dependents is going to be a worthwhile undertaking that is going to benefit a number of people in the City.
Also congruent to the proposal on health and sanitation is the Zamboanga City council’s intensification of the implementation of the Solid Waste Management, particularly the collection and segregation of waste disposals in the city to which WMSU has already been actively engaged in for having won as DENR Outstanding Eco-friendly Institution in Region IX. Furthermore, among the political issues raised which the University is also examining closely is the present government’s move towards Federalism in the country. One of the newly-elected councilor mentioned that Federalism maybe implemented provided that the present political set up where Zamboanga City is clustered together with the provinces of Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan should be under one region. This proposal increases the political awareness of the Zamboangueños to which the University would like to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions that will benefit the Zamboangueños.
These are only a few of the major plans that were raised by the newly-elected ZC officials to which the University would like to be primarily involved in the process of putting all these plans into reality for the next three years.