OUTGOING Mayor Oscar Moreno leads the last celebration of Independence Day in Divisoria here, his last before stepping down by the end of this month.
Moreno who was the mayor of Cagayan de Oro since 2013 will step down by June 30 and return to private life presumably back as a corporate lawyer which he practiced before he started his political career when he was elected as representative of the 1st District of Misamis Oriental in 1998.
He lost his gubernatorial bid for Misamis Oriental in the May 9 elections.
“I have led the Independence Day celebration for nine years. This will be the last time but the journey will continue,” Moreno said.
Moreno said he would teach in the College of Law at Xavier University after he steps down on June 30.
He said he received some offers of consultancy but nothing has panned out yet.
“Definitely I have no plans yet for 2025,” Moreno said amid speculations that he would run for Mayor of Cagayan de Oro in 2025.
In his nine years of office, Moreno made health care the cornerstone of his administration and was able to survive the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He embarked on a Covid-19 vaccination program that saw 98 percent of the city’s 750,000 residents inoculated and receiving booster shots.
The pandemic left 931 residents dead of the coronavirus and 25,821 residents infected as of April 11, 2022. There were 24,861 recoveries in that period.
Moreno constructed three hospitals during his term, two of which — the Center for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases medical facility in Barangay San Simon and Lumbia hospital- were constructed in the past two years during the Covid-19 pandemic.
