Belmonte 'deserves outstanding citizen award'

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. should be honored with an award similar to the Quezon City Gawad Parangal for most outstanding citizens, or to that given to the country’s model judges.

This suggestion was voiced by retired Supreme Court Justice Carolina Griño-Aquino, one of the city’s most outstanding citizen awardees, in her formal response on behalf of all those honored this year at the 7th Quezon City Gawad Parangal at the Crowne Plaza Galleria grand ballroom in celebration of the 69th founding anniversary of Quezon City.

She concluded her speech, which was the climax of the awards night, by declaring: “Mayor Belmonte richly deserves a similar award.”

She said like the QC Gawad Parangal awards, model judges are now being recognized, since the time of retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, “on the basis of the four I’s – integrity, impartiality, intelligence and industry.”

The Gawad Parangal is the highest form of recognition conferred by the city government on outstanding city residents who contributed to the development and transformation of Quezon City into a quality community.

The city government has honored about 60 individuals and groups since 2002, when Belmonte launched the awards. He described the awardees as “great movers, icons and models.”

Next year, the city government will also be honoring past mayors and those who are deceased, Belmonte said.

For this year, former ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. topped the list of the awardees. He is described as an icon and model of a truly successful Filipino mega-industrialist.

The city government also honored the National Book Store and the QC Parks Development Foundation, Inc. as outstanding organization and institution.

A special citation was awarded to the Kilyawan Boys Choir, which won the gold medal in the recently concluded 5th International World Choir Games in Graz, Austria.

Other special citations went to Antonio Fabella, president and artistic consultant of the Quezon City Performing Arts Foundation, Inc., 2007 Metrobank Foundation’s outstanding teacher Norma Pacaigue of Novaliches High School, and Superintendent Alex Sintin, chief of the District Intelligence and Operation Unit of the Quezon City Police District, who has been awarded as one of the country’s outstanding policemen for 2008 by the Metrobank Foundation and the Rotary Club of New Manila East.