More streetlights up in Basilan’s Isabela City
GOVERNANCE/POLITICS • 14:00 PM Sat Oct 5, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
The streetlights were inaugurated last Thursday. (Contributed photos)
BASILAN --- Residents of villages along stretches of a highway connecting the cities of Isabela and Lamitan can now safely motor through the route at nighttime, illuminated with new streetlights.
In a statement Saturday, the office of Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman said the new 35 streetlights along portions of the highway traversing uphill and downhill sites in Barangay Baluno, Isabela City is a provincial government project.
It is meant to ensure the safety of commuters and motorists passing through the highway after dusk, according to the governor.
The route has become markedly safe in recent months through the cooperation of the peace and order councils in Lamitan and in Isabela and the provincial peace and order council led by Salliman.
Isabela City Mayor Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman and Salliman led on Thursday night the symbolic launching of the 35 streetlights in the presence of local residents led by barangay officials.
The governor’s office said the project is also intended to boost the investment climate in Isabela City, now under a new mayor and vice mayor, Kifli Salliman, both first termers.
The provincial government earlier installed dozens of streetlights along portions of the same highway straddling through several barangays in Lamitan City.
The city government of Isabela and the local police are helping each other since July 1, 2019 maintain law and order in areas traversed by the same highway, something residents have never witnessed years before.
Part of the Isabela City government’s peace and security initiative is getting the streets rid of unregistered vehicles, addressing illegal parking, clearing of roadsides from obstruction and illegal vendors and to shut for good the domestic narcotics problem.
More than a dozen wanted large-scale drug traffickers have been arrested in separate operations by the Isabela City police and agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in a series of operations in the past three months that the local government unit assisted extensively.
“Streetlights along vital thoroughfares in Isabela City can complement the peace and security efforts of the city administration,” Salliman was quoted as saying in the statement his office distributed to different media outfits Saturday.