BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan shrugged off the unsavoury remarks issued against him by one of the members of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB), saying that he had been receiving numerous unsavoury remarks over the past two decades as a politician but he never allowed it to detract his momentum in leading the city to greater heights.
The local chief executive claimed that he has no personal knowledge over the utterance of unsavoury remarks against him in relation to the way the local government is handling the conduct of the festivities lined up for the month-long flower festival that is why it will be difficult for him to react on the matter but what is best is to let the same go and continue working for the overall development of the city.
“We have to treat the matter with a grain of salt. We do not want to allow the situation to worsen but we have to personally talk to the concerned individual to clarify things before we make a public pronouncement on the matter. We should not be detracted by such petty things because we have to address more pressing problems of the city rather than engage every individual to an exchange of unsavoury remarks because we will not go down to their level,” Domogan stressed.
He said that he did not expect the individual being referred to in the report to behave the way the situation was described to him that is why he will still have to look into the matter before coming out with a definite conclusion on the matter.
He added the best thing to do is to talk to the said individual and pray that he or she will not repeat the same actuations against others as it might offend others and lead to more conflicts.
As a public servant, he claimed that a leader cannot satisfy the interest of everyone but what is important is that everything is being done by local officials to effectively and efficiently address the priority concerns of the residents to prevent them from complaining about the government’s inability to give due course to their plight.
According to him, it is really difficult to deal with the individual characteristics of each of the persons publicly and privately transacting with the local government that is why utmost understanding, patience and sincerity to serve is required for a leader to be able to confront the challenges coming their way while discharging official functions and living private lives.
Domogan called on the people not to make a big issue out of the said matter because it will just create further divisiveness among the residents which he does not want to happen in the first place considering that he had always been spousing for unity for the city to achieve its goals and objectives.
He appealed to local officials and residents to continue working together to be able to chart the appropriate development plan of the city and for them not to be engaged in petty conflicts that will derail the gains that the city has achieved over the past several decades since what is important is that the present and future generations will reap the fruits of the city’s development that the local government had put in place through the years.
By Dexter A. See
