Bogo is first town entered in clean and green Hall of Fame when the town was elevated to the National Clean and Green Contest's Hall of Fame after it won, for the third consecutive year, first place in Category A in 1998.
It earned an extra PhP 1 million for the honor, in addition to the PhP 1 million in prizes it received last year.
However, this also meant the town, which is 101 kilometers north of the City, could no longer enter the competition.
Bogo, along with Palawan Province and Calawagan River in Paluan, Occidental Mindoro, joined past Hall of Famers Baguio and Puerto Princesa cities.
Mayor Celestino A. Martinez, III, Vice-Mayor Vicente Rodriguez and other town officials accepted the award from President Estrada Wednesday night at a ceremony held in Malacañang.
Early Thursday morning (Jan. 21, 1999), Bogo residents were roused form their sleep by a caravan of government vehicles, including firetrucks and ambulances, announcing the news. According to Municipal Council Secretary Maita Tuico, the Bogohanons have been waiting for the contest's results since the last week of December, as the winners were declared on Dec. 30 or Rizal Day in the past.
"We expected to win, but the waiting really had us on tenterhooks for days," she said.
Tuico said a grand victory celebration will be planned as soon as Martinez and the other officials arrive from Manila.
The win was the town's fifth straight (the other two were in a separate category) since the contest was launched in 1994 to pick the country's cleanest and greenest local government units and cleanest inland bodies of water.
For the record, no other local government unit in the contest's history has achieved the feat.
Then Mayor Reynaldo E. Dy, who served for three consecutive terms from 1988 to 1998, established the "tradition of winning".
Under his stewardship, Bogo topped the contest under Category B for sixth to fourth-class towns in 1994 and 1995.
Bogo would have been elevated to the Hall of Fame in 1996 but it was upgraded as a second-class town that year.
It won in the upper category for third to first-class towns in 1996, but it was not qualified for the Hall of Fame, which require three consecutive wins in the same category.
The challenge of attaining the feat fell on the shoulders of 27-year-old Martinez, who succeeded Dy last July, 1998.
The event is organized by the Department of Interior and Local Governments in cooperation with the Presidential Management Staff, the departments of health; environment and natural resources; education, culture and sports; and React Philippines, Inc.
Source: Sun-Star Daily |
