GARCHITORENA, C. SUR – Mayor Edmundo L. Simando last week described the poverty survey released recently by the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) as haphazard and added it did not reflect the true economic condition in most areas supposedly surveyed even as he emphasized that Garchitorena is not the poorest town in the province.
“There are many towns in Camarines Sur obviously more depressed than Garchitorena but the problem is NSCB did not make a physical survey and merely anchored its each municipality and other imagined factors”, Mayor Simando said.
The town executive who worked with the provincial planning office during the time of the late Gov. Felix A. Fuentebella said he knew of no one from the said agency who had conducted a survey in Garchitorena.
Moreover, the supposed data from which the survey was based were said to have been gathered in 2000 still yet the results were released only recently, perhaps to simply comply with the requirements of the funding agency which must have allocated a huge amount for the survey that was never actually conducted, Mayor Simando also pointed out.
“It is true that Garchitorena has still a long way to go to achieve its desired level of prosperity”, Mayor Simando admitted, but this is a concern not only of the municipal government but the national and provincial governments as well”.
He said transportation is still the major obstacle to the economic growth of the remote coastal town in the Caramoan Peninsula. Delivery of basic services from government agencies has always been delayed because the town is inaccessible at times, he explained. Garchitorena may be reached by taking the Tinambac-Tamban road and the motorboat from Tamban to the town proper in four to five hours from Naga City. It may also be reached via the Caramoan Peninsula Road now named Felix A. Fuentebella Highway which is presently not passable.
Meanwhile, Mayor Simando who is completing his third successive term announced that his son. Edmundo Simando, Jr. will run for mayor of the town in 2007 and will team up with topnotcher councilor Loreto Arcega. He will most likely face incumbent Vice Mayor Solon Demetriou who is running with Kgd. Estrella Racelis. Nonito Narvaez Borromeo also looms as an independent mayoralty candidate.
Simando will run under ticket of the NPC.
