Delivered a privilege speech about helping the affected families
Assisting the Doctors during the district medical missionOrganized and sponsored a District Medical Mission immediately after the Typhoon
Visited the evacuees in the evacuation center in JARO Gym

October 27, 2008

Even after 3 months since the tragedy brought about by Typhoon Frank that hit Iloilo City, help and financial assistance from various local government units, international governments and agencies are still coming in. This is something we are very thankful of even if Iloilo City has seemingly already recovered and has moved on.

As Chairman of the Committee on Domestic and International Affairs, it is my duty to develop good relations among various governments and private entities. In my stint, I have already worked for the forging of the sister city relationships between Iloilo City with the following cities locally and abroad: Kaoshung City, Taiwan; Mandaue City, Cebu and Quezon City. I am also working on the strengthening of the existing international and local sister city relationships we have before I became Chairman of the Committee. I am also working closely with Makati City which is one of our sister cities.

The City Government of Quezon City led the numerous local government units, in terms of the amount of financial assistance, by giving us a donation of P2 Million. In the international field,The Government of Spain led the pack of international donors who gave financial assistance, facilities and equipment which is equivalent to about P5 Million. We would also like to thank all the other local and international government units that helped us in our time of need and even private organizations and individuals who helped us out. I am happy that even my Ilonggo friends from Oregon led by Mark and my friends from New York City together with their community sent dollar financial assistance.

It is truly heartwarming to know that the "bayanihan" spirit lives on and that we go out of our way to help a person or in this case a city in need. The best thing is all of the donors didn't need to be asked, they just heartily gave and sent their support.

In times of need, truly real friends are known and seen. As they say, real friends stay when the rest are gone.