Negros Island lawmakers file bill to restore NIR

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Seven lawmakers from Negros Occidental and two from Negros Oriental are pushing for the restoration of Negros Island Region (NIR) via House Bill No. 10534 that seeks to unify Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental into one region.

The bill was filed by Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez (3rd District, Negros Occ.) and eight other Negros lawmakers.

The eight other Negros solons who co-authored HB10534 are Reps. Greg Gasataya (Bacolod City), Gerardo Valmayor (1st district, Negros Occ). Rafael Leo Cueva (2nd district, Negros Occ), Juliet Ferrer (4th district, Negros Occ). Marilou Arroyo (5th district, Negros Occ), Stephen Joseph Paduano (Abang Lingkod partylist), and Jocelyn Sy-Limkaichong and Arnolfo Teves Jr. of Negros Oriental.

HB 10534 aims to create the Negros Island Region “for greater economic coordination and more efficient delivery of public services to promote sustainable and inclusive economic development in Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental.”

“Consolidating the two Negros provinces in one administrative region will ensure greater economic coordination and more efficient delivery of public services that will promote sustainable and inclusive economic development,” Benitez stressed.

He said greater economic coordination will strengthen economics of scale in the island, and will consolidate separate development plans into a coherent, complementary road map for sustainable and inclusive economic growth for the two Negros provinces.

Negros Occidental and Oriental currently belong to two different administrative regions – Region VI and VII, respectively.

The provinces’ considerable distance from their regional centers (Iloilo for Occidental; Cebu for Oriental) has long made government services largely inaccessible to many Negrenses.

Last week, Senate Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri filed Senate Bill No. 2453, or the Negros Island Region Act, which seeks to bring together Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Bacolod City and establishing them into a single administrative region called the Negros Island Administrative Region.

“We need to make this a law so that whatever administration we are under, the Negros Island Region will stay,” Zubiri said.

The NIR, which was created through an executive order issued in 2015 by the late President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, was abolished by President Rodrigo Duterte in 2017, much to the dismay of Negrenses.