NORTH COTABATO (Vivien Bautista / 23 Jun) North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Piñol again climbed the country's highest peak, Mount Apo, in just 24 hours. It was his 8th climb in eight years.
The climb was a commitment to join the officers of the Isuzu Corporation, which sponsored the trek to Mount Apo, and a group of Manila-based journalists, he said.
Passing through the Site G of the Philippine National Oil Company, Piñol and his team met with the Isuzu team in Macadac Friday afternoon after a brief stay at the peak.
"It was the swiftest trek that I made and I feel good. I think my friends and supporters will be best assured of my good health and my detractors will stop saying that I am sick with cancer," he told the Zamboanga Journal.
Local radio reports said the politician was suffering from brain cancer, but it turned out be a hoax allegedly spread by Piñol's detractors. Piñol was a former journalist who was largely credited for his development programs in North Cotabato the past eight years as governor.
"Within the past eight years through a solid economic development program based on a refocused agricultural thrust. Our rural infrastructure program, various economic enhancement projects, and our current focus on market-oriented agriculture with emphasis on Cardava banana, coconut, oil palm and rubber have all helped us graduate from the infamous circle of the country’s poorest provinces,” he said.
From being the number five poorest province in the country in 1997, North Cotabato is now ranked by the National Statistics Coordinating Board (NSCB) as number 29 in the list of the more progressive provinces of the Philippines.
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