Rama off to Japan to promote Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama will be off to Japan to promote the Queen City of the South as a retirement haven.

The mayor said he will do his best to represent Cebu City and get as much input that the city can use for its very own facility at the South Road Properties.

“I leave it to God. I’m just there for Cebu City, with the retirement hub being promoted. And I wish there’d be some positive development that we can bring in as bacon to the City of Cebu,” Rama told The FREEMAN Sunday afternoon during his visit to the Commission on Elections North District office to personally inspect ongoing barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan registration before leaving Cebu.

Accompanying Rama in this week-long trip to personally experience the private retirement facility in Japan are SRP manager Roberto Vasquez and former councilor, executive assistant Jose Daluz III.

Rama has expressed huge interest over making a part of SRP a retirement hub.

Yahoo! Finance earlier named Cebu as one of the six cities in the world suitable and affordable for Americans to retire. Criteria in choosing these cities included “climate, whether English is spoken, cost of living, health care and infrastructure”.

Apart from Cebu, cities also listed were Chiang Mai in Thailand, Cuenca in Ecuador, Granada in Nicaragua, Hoi An in Vietnam and El Poblado and Medellin in Colombia.

Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella will be taking over while Rama is away. He said the mayor specifically instructed him to be watchful for calamities brought about by rainy season.

“With the erratic weather, he asked me to be always on the lookout for possible calamities that may arise. Immediately, before he left, I contacted people directly involved with this like Councilor Dave Tumulak, City Disaster Risk Reduction Office as well as CITOM for traffic management,” the acting mayor yesterday told reporters.

The city delegation will be back on Monday. —/BRP (FREEMAN)