Iloilo mayor, Koronadal school head named Salas awardees

The mayor of Concepcion, Iloilo and the directress of a community college in Koronadal City are this year’s recipients of the Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award.

Because of their efforts, population and development programs triumphed in Concepcion town and Koronadal City — achievements which the Rafael M. Salas Foundation Inc. (RMSFI), the Department of Health’s Commission on Population, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) honored the other day.

Concepcion Mayor Raul Banias and Champagnat Community College of the Notre Dame of Marbel University director Melfe Gallego were honored during the awarding ceremony at the Dusit Hotel Nikko in Makati City in the presence of Commission on Population executive director Tomas Osias and RMSFI chairman Arsenio Yulo Jr.

Banias was cited for his population, health and environment programs in Concepcion, a fourth-class coastal municipality with 25 barangays scattered on 16 islands and a population of 34,000.

Although poverty incidence and population growth in his town are both high, Banias launched programs which gave couples a choice to have children at the time they want to while improving their capacity to ensure a healthy and secure environment for their children.

Under his administration, he improved access to quality reproductive health services, increased the acceptance of family planning, improved the counselling skills of health service providers, and established nine Sentrong Sigla-accredited health facilities.

Gallego, on the other hand, heads a Catholic school in a community where 95 percent of the residents are illiterates.

Koronadal City’s Champagnat Community College is also located in an area where 60 percent of marriages are teen marriages and where people practice poor hygiene and sanitation.

Gallego helped 3,500 indigenous couples avail themselves of contraceptives, established eight barangay clinics, trained 32 caregivers, and reduced arranged marriages by half.

Gallego’s efforts also helped reduce the number of undernourished children by 85 percent, premarital sex among out-of-school youths by 93 percent, and early marriages by 90 percent.

She and her school sponsored the schooling of 250 indigenous children and organized community cooperatives.