ORMOC CITY — The local government has vowed to maintain peace and order in this city after gaining the drug-cleared status and the country’s safest city tag.
In his state of the city address delivered Thursday afternoon, Mayor Richard Gomez said that from being the drug capital of Eastern Visayas in 2016, Ormoc has become the first city in the region to be declared as drug-cleared.
“The drug lords of old are already gone, cleared from this city, but there will always be people who will try their hand in drug trading. We will relentlessly pursue them and weed them out,” Gomez told thousands of people who packed the Ormoc Superdome here.
For the first quarter of 2018, the city earned the distinction, from the Philippine National Police (PNP), of being the safest city in the country with an average monthly crime rate of 16.24 percent.
Based on the PNP report, Ormoc recorded only 134 crime incidents for the first quarter of the year, followed by Cotabato City in Maguindanao, and Puerto Princesa City in Palawan with 220 and 227, respectively.
The mayor said Ormoc City Police Station I received the recognition as most outstanding police station in the region during the awarding rites last month.
The actor-politician attributed the improved peace and order to the installation of LED streetlights in the entire city.
To boost the capability of the local police, the city government provided four vehicles while the central government extended another four. Policemen also received PHP17-million worth of rifles, free capability training, and fuel subsidy.
“We will not also allow anybody to threaten our peace by any means. Just recently, the peace and order of an upland village was threatened by impostors who claimed that they were members of a terrorist group. We have since ejected them. On Wednesday night, we received information that policemen arrested the impostor in Lapu-Lapu City,” Gomez said.
Gomez is seeking reelection under the ruling PDP-Laban with his wife, Leyte 4th District Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez, who is eyeing a fresh term at the House of Representatives.
He is banking on several achievements reported in his speech as his advantage over his political opponents, whose clan ruled the city for more than two decades.
It was only in 2016 that Gomez won in an election. His party-list group Mamamayan Ayaw sa Droga was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2001.
In 2007, he ran for senator but lost. He again tried for a seat in the House in 2010 but was disqualified due to residency issues.
In 2013, he lost the mayoralty race to Edward Codilla by a slim margin of less than 3,000 votes. In 2016, he defeated Codilla by nearly 9,000 votes.
Ormoc is a first-class independent component city in Leyte province with a population of more than 215,000. (Lizbeth Ann Abella/PNA)
