Negros, Siquijor lawmakers to push Negros Island Region bill

By Dolly Yasa

SILAY CITY, Negros Occ. – Re-elected Negros Occidental 3rd district Rep. Francisco Benitez told reporters here Saturday that lawmakers in the islands of Negros and Siquijor will file a bill for the creation of the Negros Island Region (NIR).

Benitez revealed the information after his inauguration and State of the District Address at the Magikland Events Center. The event coincided with his 53^rd birthday.

Benitez said this will be the first bill that will be jointly filed by the Negros Island solons including Siquijor.

The measure will be a new bill because it will include Siquijor province.

“We all agreed that we will file it on day one when the 19th Congress opens,” he said.

The NIR was previously created through an executive order of the late President Benigno Aquino III but was abolished by President Rodrigo Duterte.

EO No. 38, which was signed by President Duterte on August 7, 2017, repealed Aquino’s EO No. 183 which the latter signed in 2015.

An earlier version of the NIR bill mandated the creation of Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental located on one island as one region. The new version will one include Siquijor province.

Meanwhile, Benitez said that he will also push in the 19th Congress the institutionalization of ESD or Education for Sustainable Development, or the inclusion of the principles, concepts and facts related to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“We need to develop knowledge, skills, understanding, values and actions required to create a sustainable world, which ensures environmental protection and conservation, promotes social equity and encourages economic sustainability,” he said.

In the 18th Congress, Benitez said he initiated the adoption of principles behind the Sustainable Development Goals to redefine development planning and programming, particularly in relation to urbanization.

“It is time to bring back the “human” in planning and developing human settlements,” he added.

Benitez also said that he filed House Bill No. 3891 to highlight the human and ecological dimension of urban design.

“We need urban renewal that reconfigure urban neighborhoods to become what the urban planner David Sim calls the ‘soft city’,” he stressed.

“Soft city” is a re-imagination of the city from a mechanized society, obsessed with mobility of capital and creation of economic value, to an ecosystem that creates value from place-making and human interaction.

He pointed out that “We need to transform the grey, concrete urban landscape into blue-green infrastructure that adapts to the contours and circular dynamics of nature.”