VP Jejomar Binay and fellow scouting servants. Good morning!
Praise the Lord Almighty for this great honor and achievement. I thank the search committee for their unanimous decision voting me as Outstanding Council Chairman.
The Department of Education supported me through Division Superitindents Manuel Albaño and Arturo Isip, our former Supts. Genis Murallos, Peter Escobarte and Fiel Almendra, the district supervisors, school heads, teachers/adult leaders, the parents and the boys scouts themselves.
Most special thanks to OIC Scout Executive Christopher Roa and former Executive Alfredo Roa our Council Executive Board Members and of course Director Bienvinido Toledo.
I am also grateful to Cong. Damian Mercado, Gov. Roger Mercado and the Provincial Board and the Sangguniang Panlungsod led by City Vice Mayor Effie Abiera Sabandal, our barangays, and all our stakeholders.
Let me share some of my golden experiences in Scouting. My burning passion for Scouting made me what I am now. I was able to memorize the Scout Oath and Law at the age of four before kindergarten coached by my aunt who was a teacher in Merida, Leyte.
I was a boy scout since elementary days in Saint Joseph College in Maasin City. My first jamboree was the 6th Eastern Visayas Regional Jamborette in Sibulan, Negros Oriental.
I also joined the 6th National Jamboree in Camp Capitol Hills, Cebu City and we stayed at Subcamp Ancajas. We welcomed New Year 1978 full of revelry in the camp. The jamboree was also hit by a typhoon.
In my 4th year in high school, we helped organize the 1st Southern Leyte Provincial Jamborette in December 1978 worked as staff at Danao, Malapoc Norte. Fast forward to 2001 as Maasin City Vice Mayor I was first elected Southern Leyte Council Chairman.
I joined the following Jamborees together with our scouts: The 12th National Jamboree at Palo, Leyte, the 2nd National Scout Venture at Sorsogon City, the 12th Eastern Visayas Regional Jamborette at Cebu, the 13th National Jamboree at Mt. Makiling, the 3rd National Scout Venture at Cebu,the 4th National Rover Moot at Cabadbaran, the 2nd BIMP-EAGA Urban Jamboree at Davao City, the Centennial Jamboree at Mt. Makiling, the 4th National Scout Venture at Mambajao, Camiguin, the 5th National Rover Moot at Davao City, the 6th National Rover Moot at Tumauini, Isabela, the 2nd Border Jamboree at Zamboanga City,the 26th Asia-Pacific Jamboree at Mt. Makiling, the 14th National Diamond Jamboree at Mt. Makiling and the Phil. Scouting Centennial Jamboree at Cebu. I always give inspiration to our boys by being with them in these jamborees. I acted as subcamp chief in the 26th Asia-Pacific Jamboree and the National Diamond Jamboree.
We had established the annual Kab Olympics and Kid Holidays for the Kab and Kid Scouts. These Scouts converged to play games with their parents. We conducted the first Rover Vigil for college students. In Maasin City College, in which I am the School President, Rover Scouting is mandatory in the National Service Training Program.
We conducted Patrol Leaders' Training Course for scouts and Basic Training Course were held for adult leaders all throughout Southern Leyte. We conducted advancement camp every summer and skills competition every October. I personally give lectures during these trainings.
My three sons - Mallory, Marton and Marlon Samaco - became Eagle Scouts. Five of them became the first Eagle Scouts of So. Leyte and I was their personal Scoutmaster.
Maasin City and Southern Leyte Council hosted the 13th EVR Regional Jamborette in 2008. The first time a regional boy scouts activity was conducted in the province.We again hosted the 7th National Rover Moot and the 1st One Visayas Jamborette simultaneously in 2010. Again it was the first time the province hosted such big activities.
We intend to host the next Scout Venture in our newly improved 320-hectare Camp Danao and City Forest Park now with a City Zoo.
In 2009, I was elected Regional Chairman for Eastern Visayas Region. The Regional Scout Committee meeting was held in Maasin City. I was reelected during the regional elections in 2010 at Siquijor and again reelected in 2011 at Northern Samar. Other regional meetings I presided were held in Cebu City and Naval, Biliran.
Before that I attended majority of the Regional Key3 Scout Conferences. As Regional Chairman, the Regional Scout Committee was able to establish two new councils. These are the Tacloban City Council and the Siquijor Council. I also lobbied for their approval at the national level.
I became an automatic member of the National Executive Board. I attended board meetings and Annual National Council Meetings such as those in Manila, Cebu, Iloilo, Makati, Tagaytay, Makiling and Zamboanga. I had several occasions of meeting Vice President and BSP National President Jejomar Binay. Every time we met BSP President Binay called me giant killer because when I was incumbent Vice Mayor I defeated a giant when I first ran as City Mayor in 2007 and repeated it two more times.
In 2012, I decided to relinquish my position to DepEd Regional Director Luisa Bautista Yu for more support from the Education Department. I slide down to Regional Vice Chairman.
As Regional Chairman I hosted the woodbadge training for troop leaders in Maasin in 2009 where I was a trainee. It was ATC-TL No. 09-310. It was participated in by adult leaders from the entire region. Probably I was the only incumbent local chief executive and council chairman and regional chairman in the entire country who participated in a training so rigid and humiliating as the woodbadge for troop leaders. During that time, I was not treated as mayor but as an ordinary adult leader. We cooked our own food, slept in tents, hiked, jogged, swam the muddy lake, went through obstacles and undergone training through sleepless nights for eight days.
In 2012, we conducted again a woodbadge training for troop leaders for Eastern Visayas region at Camp Danao, Maasin City. That was ATC-TL No. 12-333. This time my wife Chona joined the training and survived the eight days without adequate sleep. Thus the two of us and our three sons became one Scouting family.
I also finished my Course for Managers of Learning CML 14-043 last year at Maasin City College. I will take up my Course for Managers of Training as soon as possible.
We also recruited street children to our Neighborhood Scouting program. These twenty-two boys were out-of-school youth and they were called bakal boys because they steal iron and steel for selling to junk yards. Sixteen of them survived the training and had joined a regional and two national jamborees all expenses paid by the council. They stopped their theft and planted vegetables at the backyard of the BSP office to earn money. These boys were enrolled in the Alternative Learning System of the Department of Education. They graduated on December 2011 and they are now employed.
BSP is a member of the CDRRMC and some adult leaders are also members of the City Rescue Team which conducted retrieval of cadavers in Tacloban after Yolanda. They also assisted in maintaining order during Pope Francis visit to Tacloban.
I'm very glad that I am very much a part of the scouting history in Southern Leyte and all throughout the country. My being a scout inspired me to attend flag ceremonies every Monday at the City Hall since I was a Vice Mayor up to the present.
On my honor, I did my best to do my duty to God and my country the Republic of the Philippines. Sa scouting may tagumpay at talagang gaganda ang buhay!
Daghan Kaayong Salamat!
