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BAGUIO CITY: The Regional Development Council (RDC)
of the Cordillera’s will pursue autonomy more firmly.
“But we must convince ourselves
that we have much to gain in an autonomous set-up,” said Director
Juan Ngalob of the National Economic Development Authority, who is
also the RDC vice-chairman.
The state of the regional
development of the Cordillera, 20 years after it was established on
July 15, 1987, through Executive Order 220, gives us more compelling
reason to re-assert our right to autonomy, continued Ngalob.
Ngalob noted that the regional
economy has been growing at an average of 5 percent, higher than the
national average of 4 percent, but the growth has been erratic over
the years. He also cited the need to diversify and broaden the
sources of growth as the region is consistently relying on Baguio-based
manufacturing, particularly from the Philippine Economic Zone
Authority.
One major drawback of CAR to
significantly advance its development is the lack of financial
resources, Ngalob said noting that CAR is not being accorded
equitable share as glimpsed from an analysis of national government
spending from 1987 to 2004.
The NEDA Director said the region
must find innovative ways to fund priority development activities.
“And through time we must show our readiness and our ability to
develop our development affairs,” he stressed.
Fiscal autonomy is one of the
premises for the RDC embarking on the regional autonomy agenda.
The region has been allotted a
P15 million budget for 2007 to jumpstart preparations for a
Cordillera autonomous region. The fund will be used for activities
geared towards assessing the people’s sentiments on regional
autonomy, advocacy and capability building activities.
For his part, Baguio Rep.
Mauricio Domogan said that he had furnished RDC the draft of his
proposed amendments to Executive Order 220 that lay out preparations
for the autonomous region of the Cordillera.
EO 220 was signed into law by
then-President Corazon Aquino in 1986 in Mount Data, a peace
agreement between the Aquino government and the rebels in the
Cordillera region led by then rebel Priest Conrado Balweg.
Unfortunately, the E0 220 failed
to make the cordillera an autonomous region due to political
differences among its leaders.
It will be recalled that in 1991
a plebiscite was held for the autonomy, but it failed to get the
majority of the votes in the six provinces and one city of the
Cordillera.
Again in 1998, another plebiscite
was held which suffered the same fate.
Domogan said, “My amendment
to EO 220 is to make the Cordillera a regular region.”
--Bennet Kathreen Alindusa
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