Things moved faster than expected.
Less than a week after President Benigno Aquino III signed EO 183 creating the Negros Island Region, DILG Secretary Mar Roxas returned to Dumaguete to formally hand over a copy of the EO and announced the date for the creation of the Technical Working Group that will put the NIR into place.
Roxas is optimistic that the NIR will be operational within this year. This, by far, is the biggest development to happen to Negros Oriental. The National Economic and Development Authority figures consistently say Negros Oriental has the highest poverty rate in Region 7, with half of its population categorized as “poor”.
Among the reasons cited for the continued poverty in Negros Oriental are lack of investments, infrastructure in tourism, power and road networks that bring goods to the markets.
Under a Negros Island Region, Negros Oriental will still be the poorer province because it has a smaller land area and is admittedly the less-developed province. It had been referred to as the “poor cousin” of Negros Occidental. With NIR, former Negros Occidental Governor Bitay Lacson now refers to the two Negros provinces as “husband and wife.”
The challenge is to improve the poverty figures. Improving the delivery of public services to people in the hinterlands is one formula for lifting people out of poverty. No doubt, this will be properly addressed under a One-Island Region because our regional planners would only have two provinces to worry about.
But the NIR is no magic bullet that will slay poverty in a flash. There is a lot of work to be done to make this happen. Roxas was right–the EO is only an instrument to guide both provinces into achieving the desired results. “But it’s up to the Negrenses how to use it. The future is in your hands.”
