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Friday, May 18, 2012
DEBATES on the proposed law to create the new province of DavaoOccidental were recently closed after the Senate passed the bill on itssecond reading.
The proposed province will be composed of the municipalities of Sta.Maria, Don Marcelino, Jose Abad Santos and Sarangani, under House Bill4451 sponsored by Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Its capital would be Malita, a municipality with a population of106,135 and an area of 88,337 hectares. It has the largest populationnext to Digos City, capital of Davao Del Sur province.
If approved, a new Davao del Sur will now be comprised of the townsof Malalag, Sulop, Kiblawan, Padada, Hagonoy, Matanao, Bansalan,Magsaysay, Sta. Cruz and Digos as the provincial seat.
A counterpart bill in the House of Representative was passed in May last year.
Marcos cited Davao del Sur’s sprawling land area of 3,934 squarekilometers as hindrance for the Provincial Government to serveefficiently.
"The distances of Digos City, Davao del Sur's provincial capital,from other municipalities in its second congressional district arefar-off that impairs the effective delivery of basic services to theconstituents, as well as the access of its locals to governmentoffices," he said.
For instance, the town of Sarangani takes about 10 hours by boat toreach the municipality of Malita, the proposed site of the new provinceof Davao Occidental, and about three hours from the municipality ofMalita to Digos City, he said.
Citing data from the National Statistics Office, Marcos said theproposed Davao Occidental has a population of 293,780, which is morethan the 250,000 population required by the Local Government Code.
It also has a land area of 2,183.97 square meters as certified by theLand Management Bureau, which is above the 2,000 square kilometersminimum requirement.
The average annual regular income of the province, for 2008 and 2009,is P113,220,081.44, way higher than the minimum requirement of P20million.
(Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)