Governor Daisy Avance Fuentes led the blessing and inauguration recently of the P20-million 35-meter Simbo Bridge located at Barangay Simbo, an agro-industrial area where banana plantations and a packing plant thrived, in the municipality of Tupi.
Simbo Punong Barangay Eliberto Prudente formally welcomed the guests and visitors, which include Provincial Engineering Office (PEO) Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Engr. Vicente Ayongao, PEO – Construction and Maintenance Division OIC Engr. Casimiro Padilla Jr., as well as barangay and purok officials.
Prudente sounded nostalgic during his message as he narrated that the bridge project was only realized after 37 or 38 years, as far as he could remember.
“Many politicians served during those long years and made promises to construct a bridge, but it is only Governor Fuentes who made this dream of ours come true,” said the thankful Punong Barangay.
Barangay Kagawad Gavino Nalda, former Punong Barangay and Municipal Councilor of Tupi, seconded Priudente’s story when he vividly recalled crossing the river where the bridge was presently located, ferrying pregnant women and sick residents to hospitals in Koronadal (then Marbel) and General Santos City.
“One pregnant constituent even died because of bleeding when I brought her to the hospital. For countless times in the past, we were not able to cross the river because the water was high and dangerous. Life then is miserable, because children missed school and workers cannot go to work,’ Nalda recounted.
In her response, Governor Fuentes said that delivery of the needed basic social service and in this case a bridge, is a priority and playing politics has no place under her administration.
“And that could be attested with the numerous projects I have accomplished in my 29 years of public service in South Cotabato,” Governor Fuentes disclosed.
Barangay Simbo has a population of nearly 1,900 among its more than 400 households..
