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HOUSE
leaders on Monday revealed a 30-percent lump-sum
provision for Mindanao in the 2008 General
Appropriations Act, which they claimed to be a
significant increase that would go into the building of
projects and programs to trigger island-wide
development.
Lakas
Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay, chairman of the House
appropriations committee, called the added lump-sum
appropriation a significant increase from what used to
be a measly 10-percent share of
Mindanao, where decades of uneven development created lingering
social and economic problems and spawned two major
insurgencies.
Partido
ng Masang Pilipino-United Opposition Rep. Rufus
Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro estimated this would
translate into some P180 billion to finance some of
Mindanao’s long-awaited projects and programs to fight
poverty and hasten development.
For his
part, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. told the meeting of
the Regional Development Council of Region 10 at the
House of Representatives composed of governors,
congressmen and regional directors of northern Mindanao
that “Mindanao is not the backdoor of the Republic but
the front door to the tiger economies of Southeast
Asia.”
De
Venecia said congressmen, governors and regional
directors must start to identify 30 to 50 major projects
for the region and “introduce specific projects under
this provision.” The RDC discussed the Medium-Term
Regional Development Plan of Northern Mindanao,
including the major programs and projects it intends to
push in the remaining years of the administration.
De
Venecia said the RDC should draw up and classify these
projects and programs under several different
categories. They could be undertaken as BOT
(build-operate-transfer) projects, mixed financing with
BOT and government loans, missionary projects with no
repayment capacity and with 100-percent government
guarantee, projects financed by appropriations from the
national budget, and projects financed by pork barrel.
He asked
regional directors to prepare necessary documentation
identifying these projects under public works,
agriculture, education, health, social welfare,
environment, and others because “these projects should
now go to Mindanao.”
He told
the region’s top officials that he has proposed the
construction of Mindanao’s first major railway, which he
hoped will further open access to
Mindanao and its hinterland regions and bring development to
millions of its people. “We’ve been risking criticism to
work for the building of the railways. Now is the time
to translate 100 years of rhetoric into a workable
program of development.”
The
Speaker urged congressmen and governors to be involved
in regional and local development in order to speed them
up. |
