Legazpi City – Countryside regions may see a more resolute phase towards development with the recent election of Albay Gov. Joey Salceda at the NEDA Board Room as national president of RDC chairs with Cebu City Michael Rama as area chair for Visayas and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte for Mindanao cluster. Last week, Salceda was earlier chosen as chair of the Luzon Area Cluster of Regional Development Councils (RDCs), which coordinates the pursuit of development concerns of 38 provinces and 67 cities.
While serving as RDC chairman for Bicol, Salceda thanked NEDA DDG Paderanga for convening the RDCom thus giving full meaning to local participation in national development planning processes including the formulation of the Medium Term Public Investment Plan. NEDA DDG tasked Salceda to preside over the 10th meeting of the NEDA Board Regional Development Committee. During the meeting, the RDCom approved the proposal of Gov. Salceda to organize a RDCom Special Committee on Mindanao Power to tackle the continuing power instability in Mindanao as well as the threat of illegal logging to Lake Lanao, a watershed that contributes almost 54% of energy in Mindanao.
Salceda also steered the RDCom in focusing on high power costs as the biggest single stumbling block to faster, more sustained and more inclusive economic growth. With improved governance, high power costs have emerged as the biggest disincentive to more domestic and foreign investments. In particular, he cited that the power sector has “transmogrified” into an instrument of inequitable distribution of wealth as while provinces like Albay has been providing Luzon cheap geothermal energy of almost 464MW while getting virtually nothing, under EPIRA it is now compelled to purchase the same power at WESM for P7.8/kwhr.
As RDC chair for Bicol, Salceda also endorsed flagship infra development particulalry on multimodal transportation infrastructure and the Bicol River Basin that are now underway, among them 1. the P3.4 billion Southern Luzon International Airport seen to uplift the economy of Region V and position Bicol in the global tourism map 2. modernization and expansion of PNR esp. its Bicol Express, Mayon Limited and Matnog extension 3. Bicol Alternate Highway and 4. Bicol River Basin, the food basket of Region V, to integrate flood control, watershed management and irrigation.
Salceda said the Southern Luzon International Airport in Daraga will also push harder Bicol’s tourism industry, particularly with its internationally known attractions such as the Cagsawa Ruins and Mayon volcano, and a renewed campaign, among others. He was also responsible in endorsing the construction of a new network of roads that crisscross once remote areas and provide easy access among Bicol provinces, particularly Albay, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon and for new and faster sea transport system linking Region V to the Vizayas.
Last year, Bicol has shed off its ‘poorest’ image with a leaping growth rate of 8.2 percent, highest so far among the other regions, and even surpassing the national growth rate. Salceda, who first assumed RDC chairmanship following election as governor of Albay in 2007, said “the economic landscape of the region now looks different, and the momentum of growth it had taken had been decisive”. His most recent accomplishment as Bicol RDC chair was the approval of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III for the initial release of P500 million for the construction of four pumping stations in Legazpi City, the first so far urban flood control project in the region. The project was endorsed by Salceda early last year.
Development projects introduced by Salceda to his province have been regarded as innovative; climate change adaptation through education and comprehensive land use plans, community-based disaster risk reduction, universal health insurance, free education with an initial goal of producing a graduate for poor every family, an economic direction designed to convert Albay into a ‘California’ in several decades.
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