ILOILO CITY — Mayor Jerry P. Treñas declared before employees of the city hall, following Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, his dream of making this highly urbanized city one of the three most livable cities in the country.

The mayor said he wanted to take a look at various frontline services of the city government, as well as the plazas and markets.

“We want to have the best plazas in Western Visayas. We want to have the best markets in Western Visayas. We want to have the best traffic management in Western Visayas. Our goal, we want Iloilo to be one of the three most highly livable cities in the Philippines,” he said.

He announced that the plan for the rehabilitation of the Jaro Plaza has been submitted to the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) for possible funding. The rehabilitation needs around PHP40 million.

The La Paz Plaza project is being revisited by TIEZA because it was not completed by the contractor from Bacolod.

Treñas also said they are still looking for the plan for the Mandurriao Plaza.

The mayor also announced his plan for the rehabilitation of the city’s slaughterhouse through public-private partnership (PPP).

“I have already talked to the PPP center. They are coming here within the month to check on the slaughterhouse. As of now there are already four parties interested in the slaughterhouse,” he revealed.

On the other hand, 12 personnel of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will be here in August for two weeks to assist the city government in the crafting its traffic management plan.

As he laid down his plans, the mayor called for the cooperation of everyone, saying that what happened in the past must be allowed to pass. He stressed that there are a lot of things that have to be done for the city.

Meanwhile, Treñas is seeing to it that all air-conditioning units at the city hall are up and running. He inspected all city hall offices during his first day in office and was surprised that some air-conditioning units were not working and offices were just using electric fans.

“How can we call ourselves the premier city when there are two, three, four electric fans in an office? We will look for the necessary funds to repair all air-con units,” he said.

The mayor said he wanted all air-conditioning units fixed by the end of July. (PNA)