Zamboanga’s Who’s Who converge in Ateneo
Some of the city’s best converged yesterday to converse in a gathering dubbed “Strategic Conversations” at the Carlos Dominguez Conference Hall of AdZU’s Fr Eusebio Salvador SJ Campus in La Purisima.
Government employees, barangay officials, social workers, and members of various sectors including business, agri-industrial, information technology, media, health, education, law and law enforcement and the religious, came together in small groups to identify issues affecting Zamboanga, share their vision for the city, and propose concrete programs and projects to pursue this dream of a Bella Zamboanga.
Identified as one of the most important and most urgent concerns was human security, encompassing multiple facets including the basic freedom to live free from fear, and accessibility to basic services such as energy, water, shelter, food, and health, transportation, etc.
A safe and secure Zamboanga that is habitable is what many envision the city to be, where people live in harmony and respect amidst differences. To pursue this dream, participants stressed the importance of ownership, of having a clear understanding of this vision at all levels, as individuals and as a city.
Fr Karel San Juan SJ, Ateneo de Zamboanga University President, synthesized the outputs in a plenary, and in response, City Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar, acknowledged the valuable ideas generated by the groups and stated that they will be useful inputs that will be addressed in the planning of the city.
