Zamboanga’s Who’s Who
converge in Ateneo
Some of the city’s best converged this morning
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, health, education, law and law
enforcement and the religious sector 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, to 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.
