[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’DIGONG TO ‘KILL’ NEGROS REGION
EO waiting President’s signature ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY TIFFANY ANNE TAN
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
BACOLOD City – President Rodrigo Duterte will “soon” sign an executive order (EO) abolishing the Negros Island Region (NIR), a Cabinet member said.
Keeping the NIR is “an expensive exercise” that would cost the government at least P19 billion, Department of Budget and Management secretary Benjamin Diokno told reporters in Malacañang.
“The EO on the NIR is not in the budget anymore. It will be repealed,” Manila-based news outlets quoted Diokno as saying. “It’s pending at the Office of the President. Anyway, it will be signed any time soon.”
Earlier, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino disclosed the NIR may be dissolved due to “budget constraints.”
On May 29, 2015 then President Benigno Aquino III created the NIR, or Region 18, through Executive Order No. 183.
Aside from having no budget in the 2017 General Appropriations Act, “it looks like NIR will be superseded by federalism,” Dino said in a statement. “The likelihood of it being abolished is there.”
Speculations on the dissolution started when the NIR’s P42.2-billion proposed budget for 2017 was excluded from the proposed national budget.
According to the Budget secretary, he was confronted with a P19-billion request by various agencies for the new region.
“I said that’s not affordable. We have other priorities,” said Diokno.
There were no allocations for the NIR in the 2016 General Appropriations Act and in the 2017 proposed national budget, he pointed out.
“You don’t want to spend P19 billion for such two-province region,” Diokno said. “In any event, with the federalism, that region will not be created, parang useless iyon.”
Hours before reports on Diokno’s comment were posted online, a former governor of Negros Occidental urged lawmakers to push for a law creating the NIR.
While they may “run against time” if they file a bill now, Negrense solons must try, according to Rafael Coscolluela.
“I think diyutay lang ang window nga open for the NIR bill,” Coscolluela said. “Ang timeline naton is up [until] the middle of next year. Kon indi ta ina madusô, we will be overtaken by other events.”
“Indi pwede nga indi ta pagtinguha-on,” said the capitol consultant on investment and promotions, trade and export development, and interagency coordination. “We don’t want it said the NIR died because we did not try.”
Negros Occidental vice governor Eugenio Jose Lacson had been insisting that a law would be a “stronger” basis for the creation of the NIR compared to an executive order.
If Duterte signs the EO abolishing the NIR, “we go back to the status quo,” said Diokno.
Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental provinces, which make up the NIR, used to belong to Western Visayas and Central Visayas, respectively.
“Services will be provided by the existing regions before the creation [of the one-island region],” the Cabinet secretary said.
According to Diokno, the President raised the issue of dissolving the NIR before their latest Cabinet meeting.
“Kailan ba last Cabinet meeting namin? Last, last Monday, may decision na,” he said. (With reports from Inquirer.net and Rappler.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
