Yt Framework

Stressing the need to record all the natural wonders of Zamboanga City, Councilor Gerky Valesco is now on the verge of completing the comprehensive eco-tourism directory for the people to have a simple, trouble-free and easy to find listing of the city’s tourism attractions.

Valesco, who chairs the Tourism Committee in the City Council, said Zamboanga has a lot to offer in natural marvels and tourism potentials such as waterfalls, rivers, caves, lakes and sites for trekking, mountain and wall climbing in many parts of the city.

The councilor, a leading promoter of ecological tourism, is a segment producer of the weekly television show Vale el Zamboanga VEZ TV aired over Sky Cable channel 16, has pioneered the promotion of rural tourism where he and the TV crews go from one barangay to the other to record on video their discoveries of the beautiful sites and wonders at the same time show it to the tele-viewers who have expressed awe that they were able to learn such wonders exists and other positive things in the city.

For his consistency in the promotion of the city’s tourism potentials, Valesco had been awarded as the Most Outstanding Councilor of the Philippines for Region 9 by the Philippines Councilors League, Philippine Jaycees and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in 2009.

In 2007, when Valesco chaired the Commission on Tourism Culture, Arts and Foreign Relations, he immediately conducted an inventory of all the city’s landmarks including historical and potential sites.

The alderman from Sta. Maria was the first to post in the internet photos of new-discoveries and high valued eco-tourism destinations which paved the way for the city government to construct new roads leading to the said areas.

Aside from promoting the barangays, the councilor also allocated part of his Countryside Development Fund for non-invasive projects in the said locations which brought admirations by the residents for his efforts and vision to develop tourism potentials in the different communities in both districts.

Valesco has also authored several resolutions in the City Council calling for the further development of landmarks including the Sta. Cruz Island which if fully realized will bolster tourism in the city.

The District 1 councilor is one of the most loved public servant not only in the city but the region as well.

By Nonong Santiago