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THE
Central Visayas Regional Development Council (CVRDC) has
formally requested President Arroyo on Wednesday to
defer the implementation of the 400-hectare Mactan North
Reclamation Development Project.
While
the President was cutting the ribbon to Cebu City’s
renovated historical legislative building, Gov.
Gwendolyn Garcia called for a special meeting of the
CVRDC to tackle the reclamation project off Magellan Bay
in the northern tip of Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan Island.
“We are
not against the project per se. We could not deliberate
on the merits of a project that has not been presented
to the RDC. This is about the process, and this council
should be respected,” the governor said.
She said
the project did not go through the usual consultations
with other localities, government agencies and the
public.
The
CVRDC has also asked the Philippine Reclamation
Authority (PRA), which entered into an agreement with
Lapu-Lapu City for the project, to “consider the inputs
of the RDC.”
It also
ordered that the project be sent back to the committee
level of the RDC for scrutiny.
“We are
trying to set up a process here. Twenty years ago all
the projects were monopolized by Cebu. Now we have given
equal chance to every city, every province and every
town to get a project,” Tagbilaran City Mayor Dan Lim
said.
Lapu-Lapu City officials, however, said the resolutions
will not derail the paperwork for the project. City
Administrator Teodulo Ybañez said they are in the
process of securing an environment compliance
certificate.
“This
will somehow delay but will not entirely delay the
project,” Ybañez told the BusinessMirror.
“We are
an island city, and for an island we need more land
because we are already getting congested.”
Mayor
Arturo Radaza did not attend the meeting and instead
authorized his officials to represent him.
City
legal officer Michael Dignos said the PRA and the city
government are still looking at a bidding for the
project by the second quarter of 2009.
The
Lapu-Lapu City government is planning to embark on the
P10-billion project in partnership with private
investors as part of its medium-term plan to become a
“investment and tourism paradise of the Pacific.”
But
environmentalists and the Cebu provincial board opposed
the project, saying it could endanger the marine
ecosystem in Mactan and could disrupt the nautical
current for the Mactan Channel.
Lapu-Lapu City officials insisted they have a written
endorsement from President Arroyo, which they said could
not be superceded by the RDC.
They
also insisted the project was already endorsed by RDC
with its inclusion in the Regional Development
Investment Plan in 2005.
Infrastructure Development Committee chairman Emmanuel
Rabacal, however, said the approval only included the
project in the plan and did not endorse the project.
“We
still have to look at their plans,” he said.
The
Lapu-Lapu officials earlier questioned Governor Garcia’s
authority to call a special meeting and make an
audiovisual presentation on the project, but was denied
on both instances. |
