Dec 9-15, 2010
Mayor Edgardo Timbol first thought he would come and go as a softdrink dealer in Kapalong, one of the oldest municipalities of the erstwhile undivided Davao del Norte province.
Kapalong Mayor Edgardo Timbol
But finally he stopped dreaming of going back to settle for good in President Pnoy’s hometown of Concepcion, Tarlac when he won the heart of Maritess Royo, one of the heiress of the politically influential Royo family in town. They got married in 1978.
The mayor admits his Royo affinity “is a factor” of his winning political career.
“They say that it needs nine years for a mayor to accomplish so much. It can actually be done within one term,” he said in Tagalog with a Tarlaqueno accent.
True enough, the second-termer mayor told the Valley & City Chronicle that during his first term he started and launched many big projects that led to the development of his town such as the improvement or construction of municipal plaza, legislative building, slaughterhouse, farm-to-market roads, street lighting, drainage system, terminal, public cemetery, road concreting, acquisition of a fleet of heavy equipment, to name a few, while continuing the delivery of the so-called soft infrastructures such as the social and medical services for the people.
He said that always the identified big projects have been aimed at addressing the people’s needs and longstanding problems.
He added that he did these without increasing taxes adding that what he has all been doing is just teaching the people to pay their taxes and in return he funnel back the increased taxes collected to more projects felt by them.
Last year, the municipal budget was about P110 million and by the coming year Kapalong would have P150 million.
“Projects should continue as people want to see development, and particularly, so that businessmen will be lured to come to invest in our town,” Mayor Timbol said.
The mayor expressed elation that at the latest this year Kapalong folks have seen start-up businesses sprouting in the town poblacion such as the 31-room inn, new stores and services and the perking up of the economy of a fast urbanizing town in the northern interior of Davao del Norte.(Rural Urban News/Cha Monforte)
Filed under: Mayor Edgardo Timbol, Mayor Edgardo Timbol
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