The abolition of the Negros Island Region by President Rodrigo Duterte has not extinguished the dream of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental from being united in one political unit.
Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Maranon, Jr. met with Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo in Dumaguete the other weekend to discuss the creation of a Negros Island State under the proposed federal system.
Gov. Maranon was accompanied by Arthur Aguilar, member of the 20-man Consultative Commission purposely created to submit a draft of the Constitution under a Federal form of government.
In an interview, the Negros Occidental chief executive said a Negros Island State will be bigger than the NIR because a state is bigger than a region itself.
Aguilar, a lawyer, disclosed the commission had been meeting with a lot of sectors and had finished the structure of government and is working on the judiciary and legislation.
He made it clear that the commission’s function is recommendatory, and that the commission is expected to submit the recommended draft to the President by the end of June this year.
Aguilar’s personal recommendation is for Negros Island to become one state, which he suggested in a conference with Degamo and Marañon on Saturday to make sure both Negros provinces stick together.
He said it really makes sense for Negros to be one complete state by itself because it is one of the most economically viable islands, as the fourth largest of the Philippines and one of the richest.
To date, the commission is still deliberating as to how many states are to be created under a federal government.
The commission is chaired by retired Chief Justice Renato Puno with members including Senate President Pimentel, two associate justices of the Supreme Court, people from the academe, among others, while Aguilar is the only one coming from Negros and Western Visayas.
For his part, Gov. Degamo’s proposal would be to retain the governors of the two provinces and the state will be headed by either one of them.
“But I want the interest of both provinces preserved, including the sharing scheme of the internal revenue allotment that they have previously agreed under the Negros Island Region which was dissolved,” Degamo stressed. (Juancho Gallarde/PNA)
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