BAGUIO City Mayor Mauricio Domogan over the week called on officials of other municipalities particularly in La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (LISTT) to work together in salvaging a proposed law filed by Representative Mark Go.
Domogan during his weekly ugnayan told reporters local officials and concerned stakeholders in the BLISTT area to get their acts together in urging Go to remove objectionable provisions and retain other provisions that would pave the way for an inclusive growth in the area.
“We have to salvage the bill because it has good contents. We have to closely work together to assess the bill, iron out the provisions that seem not to be helpful and propose alternative provisions that will improve the bill,” Domogan said.
Some officials within BLISTT, particularly Itogon expressed their objections to some of the provisions of the proposed law filed with the House of Representatives.
Members of the Itogon Municipal Council earlier passed a resolution interposing several objections to some of the contents of the bill creating the BLISTT Development Authority, particularly the requirement for the member local governments to shell out an annual five percent from their budgets to sustain the management, administration, and operation of the authority.
Domogan added it is best for the concerned officials to get together and identify the objectionable provision and propose alternatives to guarantee the enactment of the law that will surely be beneficial to the concerned local governments.
Other local governments are also intending to come out with similar resolutions interposing an objection to the provision and these might derail its desired passage into law in the 17th Congress.
But the chief executive cited even the city’s finance officers raised concern over the provisions being questioned by other local officials, saying the best thing to do is to unite on the matter and propose a possible alternative which they will have to discuss the soonest while the bill is still pending before the House committee on local governments.
Domogan suggested to the proponents of the BLISTT Development Authority bill to incorporate in the provisions of the proposed law the contents of the memorandum of understanding was signed by all the local chief executives of the BLISTT to at least start the operation of the BLISTT Governing Board and the BLISTT Development Council which conduct meetings periodically to discuss the concrete priority programs and projects in the said growth area.
The Regional Development Council (RDC) in the Cordillera last year approved the creation of the BLISTT Governing Board and the BLISTT Development Council to jumpstart the work that will result in the realization of the long overdue proposal to create the Metro Baguio growth area. (Roderick Osis)