Cebu is no longer anti-Marcos country because Cebuanos have changed their views about the Marcos family, said Dumanjug Mayor Nelson Garcia.
He made this point as he explained last week’s trip which he and 12 other Cebu mayors made with Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia and three Provincial Board (PB) members to Ilocos Norte.
The five-day trip combined sightseeing of tourism spots with the signing of a sisterhood agreement on July 2 between Cebu and Ilocos Norte, which is headed by Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos.
Nelson, younger brother of Governor Garcia, is president of the League of Municipalities in the Philippines (LMP) Cebu chapter.
The sisterhood agreement coincided with the celebration of the 82nd birthday of Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos.
“We were treated all around Ilocos just like the Suroy-Suroy sa Sugbo. We visited all the historical sites in Ilocos Norte. We learned things about Ilocos that we hadn’t hear about before,” Garcia said.
In return, Governor Garcia invited Governor Marcos and her mayors and Imelda to visit Cebu in August for the province’s founding anniversary.
During the Marcos regime and after the 1972 declaration of Martial Law, Cebu was an anti-Marcos opposition bailiwick which intensifed with the 1983 assasination of former Sen. Benigno Aguino. .
Cory Aquino was in Cebu to declare a boycott of Marcos crony companies when the 1986 EDSA uprising broke out. She took shelter overnight in the Carmelite convent before flying back to Manila to lead the historic, non-violent change of government.
Yesterday, Mayor Garcia said it isn’t true that Cebu is still “anti-Marcos.”
“The anti-Marcos stance is already in the history books. People have changed, people changed their views. People changed their attitudes, especially the new ones right now,” he said.
He said Cebu and Ilocos will be a different story in terms of economic and political ties in the 21st century.
“We’ll work for progress … industry, technology, culture … that’s a very good start. If there’s One Cebu, we will also have One Ilocos and probably later on, One Philippines,” he added.
Last April, Governor Marcos visited Cebu for the memorandum of understanding, saying she wants to share best practices in renewable energy development and tourism.
In their visit to the windmills in Bangui, Ilocos Norte, Mayor Garcia said Cebu has the potential to replicate this power source.
“We learned that it can be done also in Cebu so the use of coal-fired power plants will be minimized,” he said.Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus