Bacolod can develop
into business hub – Noli

Bacolod residents need not despair. The closure of the old airport does not mean that it will retrogress. Rather it opens a new vista of development into a business and residential hub.

And, yes, it can also be the site of communications with the entry into the city of several more phone centers. The latest is Convergys. And, if it is of any comfort to Negrenses, there is an ongoing competition for trained manpower, the initial offers escalating fast.

So, what's the beef? Just an emotional response for something which used to be. And, if plans are finally realized, an ancillary roadway, according to Rep. Monico Puentevella, will be constructed soon and will link the Bacolod-Silay airport to the Circumferential Road in Bacolod and reduce running time to just 15 minutes.

Well, that's about the same time required to motor all the way from our residence at the Capitol Heights to the old airport.

The only problem now is the allegedly prohibitive cost of fares to and from the new airport. Well, the shuttle buses at the SM Mall has brought down the fare to only an affordable P100 per passenger.

Right now, according to Ed Sutherland of the CIDA, arrangements are being made with cabs to allow them to lower their rates to about P150 per head from a downtown hotel to the airport. Manageable. In Manila , we often find ourselves paying the same amount from the NAIA II to where my children reside.

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Yes, I think City Mayor Evelio Leonardia should cultivate and thank the Anti-Baha Coalition for giving him feedback on what is happening to some of the priority projects of the city government.

For example, their recent video-tapes of conditions at the Abada-Escay Relocation Center should give him a cue as to what else the city government should do to make the place habitable for the resettled squatters.

As it is, it seems that the city mayor considers their transfer to a new site enough to solve the problem of the squatters. Thus, the new occupants of the place do not have the water facilities needed. They have to buy bottled water outside at P10 per container.

Second, they lack electricity. The newly relocated squatters claim that they have to pay from P300 to P400 per household to the owner of an electric connection which they tap for power.

And, yes, they lack roads and canals. One was caught by the video trying to scrape a passage way for murky water to flow out.

These are things which city officials should be thankful for. If not for the Anti-Baha coalition, these feedbacks could not have been known.

Thus, it is imperative that the city immediately consider these as problems that deserve immediate attention and not as an attempt of political demolition.

That gives them all the time to correct mistakes and omissions rather than an attack against the administration. It is, as I had previously mentioned, the concern by well-meaning citizens to help the city government that deserves to be encouraged.

Soon, as I had previously mentioned in another column, a group of subdivision owners in the Espinos II and a nearby barangay Taculing plan to undertake their own solution to garbage problem which they think the city government has failed to address. Thus, instead of complaining, they intend to do something themselves.

While we have our eyes focused on our internal problems, we seem to have overlooked more serious developments elsewhere in the Western Visayas Region.

First, there was the “bomb threats” that prompted the Iloilo City police to dispatch its bomb squad to the Ramon Avanceña Hall of Justice.

While the two threats had been found negative, Treñas pointed out that two in a row means that is was a deliberate attempt to sow terror. And Treñas suspects that the pranksters may repeat the same again during the Dinagyang Festival this weekend.

The problem with such pranks is that the police must first exhaust all means to rule out the threat. Thus, many man hours are lost just combing an area or building for such bombs.

But the more serious problem is the ongoing struggle between Iloilo Governor Niel Tupas and his estranged nephew, former Rep. Rex Suplico, now vice governor.

Gov. Tupas threatens to veto the budget which Suplico and the provincial board passed only after eliminating the outlays for Administrator Boy Mejorada and Mrs. Myrna Tupas whom the governor had named as executive assistant. Also slashed was the outlay for the pay of Provincial legal officer Salvador Cabaluna.

Suplico, during last week's Reklamo Publiko, insisted that the provincial board has the power to abolish confidential positions. He said the limit is only career positions.*

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