Alaminos City Mayor Hernani A. Braganza expressed optimism that One Pangasinan Alliance of LGUs (OPAL) will be strengthened and institutionalized as in economic alliance in the province of Pangasinan, thereby, creating greater opportunities for the people in the OPAL area.
Braganza made such assessment during the launching of the Local Governance Support Program for Local Economic Development (LGSP-LED) and the National Forum on LED which is highlighted by the signing of the Statement of Commitment of Support to Promote Economic Governance in the Philippines held last Monday at the Ayala Museum in Makati City.
Present during said historic signing were DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Canadian Ambassador Robert Desjardins, Governor Felipe Hilan Nava of Guimaras, Vice Governor Julius Herrera of Bohol, and Governor Rolando Yebes of Zamboanga del Norte and chairperson of DDPKaRoMa, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) First Counsellor for Development May Wong, DILG Usec. Austere A. Panadero, Canadian Executing Agency’s Field Director Marion Villanueva, and Herman Ongkiko, Program Manager of the LGSP-LED.
OPAL is an economic alliance of 7 co-equal local government executives in the 1st district of Pangasinan.
It is one of the four LGU alliances selected by the LSGP-LED Project Steering Committee for Phase 1 of the project and was officially launched here last June 10.
The launch was highlighted by the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the project partners namely the Canadian Executing Agency, CIDA’s implementing arm, DILG Regional I and OPAL.
LGSP-LED is an eight-year collaborative project of the Governments of Canada and the Philippines aimed at fostering efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable governance at all levels.
It is a program of DILG and CIDA, and implemented by the Canadian Executing Agency (CEA), a consortium composed of the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC).
LGSP-LED seeks to reduce poverty by strengthening local governance and supporting sustainable local economic development (LED).The project is also intended to enable an effective national policy and program environment and improving the prospects for local economy in the local governments, the briefer adds.
National LED Forum and the LGSP-LED Launch is intended as venue to create awareness, build support and advocate for sustainable economic governance among the key national government agencies, private sector, LGU leagues and international donor community.
By the end of this month, we expect thru LGSP-LED that we have empowered our local government in the exercise of their corporate mandates, said Braganza in his message.
“We have harmonized or thrusted new policies that will attract investments in the OPAL district,” added the OPAL chairperson. “We have set-up a system that will enhance our revenue enhancement programs for the OPAL District and not just relay on IRA and modernize our governmental system in the OPAL and municipal as well.”
Sustainable opportunities
Braganza cited that the biggest challenge to OPAL now is how to transform its natural resources into sustainable opportunities for its people in terms of business, jobs, or even incomes.
The OPAL district is basically rich in agricultural resources and in tourism potentials, being home to 75% of the major tourist destinations foremost of which is the Hundred Islands National Park and historical sites in the province of Pangasinan.
It has a power plant in the municipality of Sual. All towns are covered by major telecommunication companies and are accessible by land 24 hours a day and accessible by sea thru the seaport and hopefully by 2011 or 2012, the first commercial airport in the province of Pangasinan will be built in the city.
Water is not a big problem in the district having two water district and five municipal water works.
But despite of all these natural resources, agriculture remains untapped, eco-tourism destination remains undeveloped, commerce is relatively young and the LGUs are dependent on their IRA share in the OPAL district And poverty is still equal to the national average at 37%.
In the case of Alaminos which almost 86% dependent on IRA, which simply means, the city is not generating enough resources from the establishments in the area.
Our vision to LGSP-LED is to modernize our respective LGUs to empower or strengthen our capabilities to become enablers of opportunities or more great opportunities for the people in the OPAL district.
“It is likewise our vision to make our economy more vibrant compared to the present led by agriculture and tourism which is the dominant drivers of growth in the OPAL district,” added the former two-term congressman.
“We also envisioned providing adequate water not only for the houses but for agriculture as well and for business. It is also important to develop our capacities in terms of social mobilization for us to deliver and effectively reach out to our respective constituents.”
Impact on local economy
By utilizing media for example, the mayor firmly believes that in a span of 15 months, OPAL will able to promote the natural beauty of the district. It will also able to create more opportunities, not only among its constituents but reach out beyond OPAL and promote the economic and investment opportunities of the respective municipalities.
OPAL is also expected to come-up with an integrated system and strategies to be able to provide opportunities for the respective LGUs as well as in the conservation, protection and rehabilitation program for its watershed areas.
After 15 months, we believe, thru these programs that we will be able to develop more modules for agricultural enterprises in the OPAL area, said Bragranza adding that this will lead to the reduction of poverty especially to the agricultural sector.
He added that OPAL will be able to build, more or less, an average of 45 major cooperatives, or an average of 6-7 per local government that will reach out to almost 5% of the total household in OPAL and 3% of the total number of agricultural lands.
“This is our belief that these will have a major impact not only in our local economy, but in terms of attracting investors in the first district or the OPAL district,” the mayor pointed out.
Also in tourism, OPAL will be able to capacitate potential business partners and stakeholders that can immediately go into business within that 15 month period.
It will also easily promote, conserve and protect the natural beauty in the OPAL area and transform these resources into potential economic opportunities and, integrate all of these under one major program.
“After 15 months of being together, we do sincerely believe that after an expensive preparation and capacity building program, we will be able to secure investments for the OPAL district,” said the mayor.
“At the end of the day, if we have fully capacitated our local government and our business partners, then the propose agricultural and transportation terminal will better be filled in the city of Alaminos and other support facilities like the medical facility, the state university that will further institutionalize what we have done in the last 15 months and in other areas of OPAL, prepare OPAL for phase II,” he added.
“With that I say thank you to the Department of Interior and Local Government, of course to CIDA, for these opportunities to be working with all of you. See you in the next 15 months,” the mayor finally quipped.
Huge investment
Aside from OPAL of Western Pangasinan, the other three participating LGU alliances that also won the foreign grant were the Province of Guimaras Agri-Tourism Development Alliance, the Dapitan-Dipolog-Polanco-Katipunan-Pres.M.Roxas-Manukan (DDPKaRoMa) Growth Corridor in the province of Zamboanga del Norte, and the Bohol Integrated Area Development Cluster V in the province of Bohol.
The said principal stakeholders have already conducted their respective project launch in order to generate greater public awareness and stakeholder commitments in pursuing their priority local economic development initiatives in agri-business development, agri-tourism, sustainable agriculture and micro, small and medium scale enterprise development.
Desjardins in his keynote speech expounded the theme of the LGSP-LED launching “Canada’s Commitment of Support to Economic Governance in the Philippines.”
“As your partner for more than 25 years, we have been your development part, he said. We have invested in this country $ 600 M and we are very proud of our investments here.
“What we have invested here is hard earned Canadian tax payers’ dollars. And I can tell you that we will do what we can to inform Canadians on what we do here and how well there money invested here and how we have practical results to show for,” he added.
Desjardins then commend the Philippine government under the leadership of the Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for providing the environment that makes the lower community, a community welcomed here and thru rigorous process team-up with the people who were carefully selected based on their past records on their competence of the quality of there engagement for the future.
“As Canadians, we are enormously proud to be associated with people like you who have demonstrated love and will continue to demonstrate commitment to the improvement of the economic situation in the Philippines,” said ambassador who even made a commitment to personally visit the LGU alliances in the next few months.
“Congratulations to you all for your achievement of being part of this project. Over the next 8 years, we expect your courage and strength in making this development project the biggest ever in the Philippines,” he added. “We have to, more than ever, work very hard to make sure that those who are not as fortunate as we are can find hope and find better ways to support themselves and support their family.
Meanwhile, Villanueva said experiences of the four LGU alliances will serve as beacons of local economic development for the other LGUs in the country to replicate.
As the country charts its economic future, in this difficult time, LSGP-LED will play an important role in the addressing this challenges, she added.“Inspired by one community of LGUs, LGSP-LED together with DILG and other key national government agencies, we will work together under one vision, one mission and that is for the improvement of the quality of life of the Filipinos to effective economic governance.”
Miracle areas
Sec. Puno opened his message by saying he’s very proud of the local officials that have been chosen to be part of the LGSP-LED.
He described the four LGU alliances as miracle areas in the country.
First is Guimaras, the province that is now into exports of mangoes which for many years the entire country was trying to export and it was Guimaras that was able to place the trade in that area.
Zamboanga del Norte was once considered as one of the poorest provinces before and now one could see the major development and transformation in this province.From being one of the 20 poorest provinces, Bohol is now being the ranked 45th province in the entire country in a very short span of time.
And finally Alaminos, which according to the secretary, become a much greater city under the leadership of the energetic and visionary city mayor.
“We are launching this program today which I believe is an indication that we are reverting direction from where we were few years ago, said Puno.
“This is one of the two programs that we are inaugurating this year which highlights the participation of local governments that rest upon the capacity and the leadership of local government which considers all the values of the community and more importantly involves the private sector in the effort and establish a teamwork among themselves in the different localities,” he added.
“So this is really great moment for us, not just the beginning of a program but I think re-establishing our participation in cooperating with the local government as catalyst for them to undertake several projects.”
“It marks a change (I think) in the perspective of the over-all development management in local government…with the framework that has been described earlier; we think that the local government will be able to develop themselves into vibrant economic entities that will truly lead us out of all the crisis that we will face in the future.”
Towards greater reliance on LGUs
Puno said it is easy for the national government sometimes to bring up the macro level of all the problems you see in the different provinces in the country.It is easy to write nationwide statistics and establish general programs that address the national statistics.
Having been an advocate and participant in local government development for almost his entire profession, Puno explained that “what you see in the province, what you see in the community is very different from the statistics that you see on the table of the cabinet meeting.”
He said that it has been a constant effort on his part to try to ensure that this point of view of LGU officials on how they can they develop themselves into better communities and into better partners in the national development programs really is a very vital part of how they proceed with the affairs of the government.
Puno then thank the government of Canada, His Excellency, for being the first in line in this recharging of our past towards a greater reliance on the local government throughout the country.
“And we thank the entire Canadian people through you for there concerned and continued friendship and partnership,” he said.“We are proud of the capacity and the ability to lead of our local government officials. I’m proud that the progress they have made over the many years that they being involved in capacity building. I am proud to be with them in any meeting with international lending institution,” he added.
“And like you, we are confident about the success of this program. I have no doubt that we will live up to the expectation of the government of Canada, the Canadian people for this program.”(CIO)