The governor of Leyte Remedios 'Matin' L. Petilla is a hardworking, dedicated civil servant whose obsession is to make her province a tourist destination. She and her associate visited Singapore to entice Singaporean to invest and visit the beautiful island of Leyte.
Matin said that Leyte is a first-class province, the largest of six provinces in Eastern Visayas and it has a total land area of 5,172.80 square kilometers, and a population of 1,5 million. Its annual budget is a mere P600-million from the IRA and 50-million from the realty tax collections. Its major income comes from coconut oil, but this has been drastically reduced on account of low coconut oil prices. It has shares for royalty from PNOC for its municipality, Tongonon being the site of a geothermal power plant, but these are a mere P3million a year.
A reliable source said that under Governor Petilla's administration, the province was judged most outstanding province in the whole country during the 1998 centennial celebration; it has the most outstanding local government unit in day-care services, local health board, and youth organization. It is a recipient of the gold medal for the most outstanding LGU in livelihood management, and a special awardee of the Presidential Assistance of Community Development. It is a hall-of-fame awardee as having the best destination showcase, most outstanding local government unit in population management, and judge the most statistically-developed province.
Personally, we take good care of Matin's visit in Singapore and we enjoy her simple and friendly personality. And this friendship leads in making one of Hilongos constituency's to become the Manager of a government project in Palo Leyte who shame us.
