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Governor Gets Leadership Award
By JUNE S. BLANCO
Published: December 03, 2006 by The Bohol Standard

GOV. Erico Aumentado made it – he won the 2006 Local Government Leadership Award (LGLA) for Outstanding Provincial Governor.

Senator Aquilino Pimentel and top brass of the institutions supporting the awards handed the plaque, a medal and a certification that announced that he was already in the final list. All finalists received the certification but only the winners received plaques and medals.

The honor came with P500,000 from Pimentel’s pork barrel. Aumentado said he intends to use the amount for the beautification of the national highway. For starters, he plans to plant flame trees along the Bohol Circumferential Road and the Loay Interior Road to Trinidad .

Informed earlier by 2006 LGLA Secretariat Head Simeon Ilago, director of the Center for Local and Regional Governance (CLRG) of the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance in Diliman, Quezon City that he has been selected as a finalist in the Outstanding Provincial Governor Category, Aumentado did not put high hopes in clinching the award.

“Senator Pimentel heads the LGLA National Selection Committee. I may be already short-listed but he might drop me from the final list because we are worst enemies politically because of my advocacy for Charter change,” the governor said.

The awarding rites were held Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 29 at the Pecson Room of the Senate of the Philippines Building in Pasay City . Also honored were outstanding city and municipal mayors. Tagbilaran City Mayor Dan Lim also made it to the short list.

Still reeling from the experience, Aumentado needs to go back receive yet another award for Bohol from Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of Germany and the Local Government Development Foundation (Logodef) for being the highly-performing province out of 80 nationwide.

The province will get a special certificate of recognition while for steering the province to such heights Aumentado will get the Konrad Adenauer Medal of Excellence and a separate special certificate on Dec. 6 at the Champagne Room of the Manila Hotel.

Aumentado attributes his selection as outstanding governor in the LGLA to his flagship program of poverty reduction for peace and development.

Poverty and insurgency are both causes and effects. The governor said unless something is done to reduce poverty, insurgency will breed and thrive.

When he first took over as governor in 2001, Bohol belonged to Club 20 – the 20 poorest provinces out of 79 in the country.

But inculcating in the local government units, the municipalities and the barangays the convergence strategy and the bayanihan spirit in the implementation of projects especially those geared for poverty reduction, and ensuring community or people empowerment in planning and implementation, his formula worked.

The end result is that according to the United Nations Development Programme Philippines 2005 Human Development Report, Bohol graduated from Club 20 and moved to the No. 41 position.

Only last May, the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) reported that Bohol is now in the 52nd spot, with the corresponding reduction of the insurgency problem for which Bohol is no longer the headquarters of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) in Central and Eastern Visayas .

Aumentado said all his poverty reduction projects are tied with peace and development efforts. Poverty breeds unrest, and to address insurgency, one must first address poverty and deprivation. The Poverty Reduction Program for Peace and Development won the Trailblazing Program Award and a Special Citation on Local Peace Initiatives – the first ever – from the Galing Pook Foundation in 2004.

The number of CPP-NPA-NDF influenced barangays was reduced from 305 out of 1,109 to 46 by 2005. Armed NPA members were reduced from 283 in 2001 to 42 in 2005. The Central Visayas headquarters of the CPP-NPA has also been moved to Leyte .

Such improvements apparently convinced the top local communist leader to surrender.

“Today, I am happy to report that the CPP-NDF-NPA political officer of Bohol – Domingo Samuya alias Ka Aryong – surrendered to me on Nov. 10 ultimo after 25 years of leading the insurgency movement in the province. This is a major breakthrough for Peace and Development in Bohol ,” he said.

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