LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Municipal officials of the capital town of Benguet and Bontoc, the capital town of Mountain Province, recently strengthened their sisterhood ties with the signing of their twinning agreement that will help in boosting interaction and exchange on the various aspects of governance.
The twinning agreement was sealed by Mayor Romeo K. Salda and Bontoc Mayor Jerome Tudlong, Jr. during the simple signing ceremony held at the Lednicky hall Thursday.
Under the sisterhood agreement, both local governments vowed to enhance their respective interaction and exchanges on trade, social services, disaster risk reduction and management, agriculture, tourism and education among other aspects of governance that will help in bringing the 2 capital towns to greater heights.
As part of the sisterhood agreement signing, mayor Salda handed over to Mayor Tudlong a check amounting to P100,000 as assistance of the local government to the fire victims of the fire that ravaged numerous structures and displayed dozens of families at sitio Loc-ong, barangay Poblacion, Bontoc, Mountain Province last month.
Further, The Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) of the municipality and the candidates for Mr. and Ms. La Trinidad also turnover to Mayor Tudlong some P17,000 as their assistance to the fire victims in Bontoc.
The Mr. and Ms. La Trinidad organization conducted a series of live selling events that was conducted for a week where they sold to the public pre-owned clothes to be able to raise the funds that could be used for the recovery efforts of Bontoc and the fire victims instead of the clothes being given directly.
For his part, Mayor Tudlong expressed his gratitude to the people and officialdom of La Trinidad for the enhancement of the sisterhood between the 2 capital towns for the said local governments to be able to freely exchange their best practices in various aspects of governance that will contribute in bolstering their growth and development in the future.
Moreover, he also expressed his gratitude to the youth of La Trinidad for their efforts in extending assistance to the fire victims through their own fund raising events, saying that their gesture is worthy of emulation by other youth organizations in the different parts of the region.
He admitted that the recovery efforts for the fire victims are now underway that is why the local government and even the victims themselves need the support of the public for them to be able to recover from the tragic incident that resulted in the significant loss of properties during the said fire incident.