DARAGA, Albay — Albay has further accelerated its lead in disaster risk-reduction (DRR) management over other local government units through its “economic township” approach that aims to move people and businesses from disaster-risk areas to safe communities, where they can prosper and achieve inclusive growth.
Its P4.4-billion Guinobatan-Camalig-Daraga-Legazpi (Guicadale) Economic Township, which is now fast taking shape, is hailed as the country’s largest and most ambitious government-initiated geostatic intervention of moving people and firms out of harm’s way into safe development communities.
The Guicadale Economic Township includes road networks that link some 40 resettlement communities within the combine geographic areas of the municipalities of Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga and Legazpi City that surround the Bicol International Airport (BIA) in Barangay Alobo in Daraga, which is under construction.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, who formulated and initiated the scheme in 2007, when he assumed the governorship of his province, said the Guicadala economic township road networks are scheduled for completion in time with the opening of the BIA in about two years.
Guicadale and the BIA are envisioned to complement each other, and transform Albay into a hub of economic development in Southern Luzon, backed up by a strong tourism industry.
The economic-township concept and its economic platform are founded on the principles of DRR, for which Albay is the UN Global Model. Funded initially in 2010, the project is being implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways. Most of the township’s roads are now being cocreted, with some sections already open.
Salceda said Guicadale provides the necessary requirements for Albay business to settle and relocate, when the BIA shall have opened, in a safe economic platform far from identified danger zones at the foot of Mayon Volcano that are prone to flash floods and lahar flows, and coastal places risky to typhoon surges.
With its development approach anchored on a Green Economy program, and powered by a pioneering disaster risk-reduction strategy, Albay has shaken itself out of the quagmire of underdevelopment resulting from frequent natural disasters to become one among the lead developing areas of the country, most particularly in the field of tourism.
Albay submitted the Guicadale Economic Township project in 2007 to the Bicol Regional Development Council (RDC), which endorsed it to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
Salceda said Albay worked for the project’s approval by the Investment Coordination Committee’s Technical Working Group, the Neda and the Department of Budget and Management for budget strategy.
Among Albay’s big projects aimed at supporting the Guicadale and making the province as an economic hub of the Bicol region when the BIA opens are the P20.8-billion Cagraray-Batan-Rapurapu bridges; the P1.25-billion Arimbay-Mesirecordia Viaduct; and the Almasor (Albay-Masbate-Sorsogon) Tourism Alliance, with P 19.28 billion.
As Bicol RDC chairman for the third term now, Salceda has also proposed the construction of the South Luzon Expressway extension to the Bicol region to be called the Quezon-Bicol Expressway, which includes the road tunneling of mountain ranges that separate the region from the Luzon mainstream, and its P3.6-billion Naga-Polangui sections.
PNA