REMAI ALEJADO
Online news contributor
PAGADIAN CITY: GLORIA Macapagal-Arroyo will make good her promise to improve this city’s airport, city officials believe this to be so because the president has mentioned this in her recently delivered State of the Nation Address (SONA).
In her speech, Arroyo said she will improve the airports of Pagadian, Dipolog and Cotabato. City and provincial officials were elated after it was mentioned by the President’s last July 23. Pagadian City was converted into Region-9’s Center by virtue of Executive Order No. 429, issued by Arroyo.
As a regional center, the airport plays a big factor in luring tourists, visitors and investors. Few days before the SONA, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) here has issued Resolution No. 2K7-040 which requested Arroyo to allocate funds for the expansion and extension of Pagadian City airport.
During her 2006 SONA, Arroyo unveiled her accomplishments regarding the creation of super regions. Last Monday, she emphasized that “super regions was not a gimmick for the occasion but the blueprint for building the future.”
To realize this, “more airports, roads and bridges will be built all over the country as part of the super regions projects,” she said.
The President said in her recent SONA that since Mindanao is the country’s food basket, she would prioritize agribusiness investments here for her remaining three years at the helm.
Relative to this, Arroyo pronounced that she will move the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to Mindanao while the Departments of Agriculture and Environment and Natural Resources will also devote 30 per cent of their program budgets here.
On achieving peace especially in Mindanao, Arroyo stressed that the national government will pour in the needed resources.
However, she said that it is never right and always wrong to fight terror with terror. It is for this principle that she urged Congress to enact laws against political violence.