What's the plan for Cebu's seventh congressional district?

The poorest district in the richest province of the Philippines is the seventh. I feel very sad for this because I come from this district. In 2016, this district had only a revenue of P528.925 million, which is one fourth of the first district's P2.030 billion. It has eight towns, the DRAMBAGG, or Dumanjug, Ronda, Alcantara, Moalboal, Malabuyoc, Badian, Alegria, and Ginatilan. There has got to be a vision for this very nice southwestern tip of Cebu, so rich in potentials, for tourism and agri-aqua development.

Certainly, the leader of this district should have a long-range, and medium-term plan to address the socio-economic problems, which make life very difficult for the people. There must be a concrete plan to address its very high poverty incidence and the lack of jobs and livelihood. I know Congressman Peter John Calderon and I respect him. But we need to see what his plans are for the development of this district. The 7th District has a large area of 640.62 square km., compared to the first district with only 527.96 square km. The seventh has seven LGUs while the first has only six. The seventh has 141 barangays while the first 131. The poverty incidence in the seventh is 30.3%, (with Malbuyoc having 44.29% poor), while it is only 20.31% in the first. The population of the seventh is only 214,364 while there are 709,660 in the first. There are only 154,031 voters in the seventh and 431,872 in the fist.

The more advanced towns in the seventh, based on 2016 figures are: Dumanjug with a revenue of P126.080 million, Moalboal with P110.298 million, Badian with P75.394 million, and Malabuyoc with P63.912 million. The rest are Ronda, P62.258 million; Alcantara, 49.407 million, Ginatilan, 27.545 million, and the lowest is Alegria with P14.029 million. But in terms of 2016 poverty incidence: Malabuyoc had the highest number of poor people, with 44.29%, Alegria 40.51%, Badian 36.84%, Alcantara 33.56%, Ginatilan 33.29%, Dumanjug 30.90%, Ronda 30.24%, and Moalboal 26.58%. The annual per capita income of people in Badian is P1,989, P2,462 in Dumanjug, P3,058 in Ronda, P3,177 in Alegria, P3,259 in Alcantara, P3,299 in Malabuyoc, P3,543 in Moalboal, P3,615 in Ginatilan.

The biggest potentials are in Dumanjug, Moalboal, and Badian, and so, what are the long-range plans for these towns? In terms of area, the biggest is Moalboal with 124.86 square km., followed by Badian with 110.07 square km., and Alegria with 89.49 square km. and Dumanjug 85.53 square km. Ginatilan has 70.10 square km., Malabuyoc 69.27 square km., Ronda has 57.10 square km., and Alcantara 36.20 square km. In terms of population, however, Dumanjug has the biggest, with 51,210, followed by Badian with 37,912, Moalboal with 31,130, and Alegria with 23,300, Ronda has 20,360, Malabuyoc with 19,373, Ginatilan with 15,919 and Alcantara, with only 15,160. What are the plans for these towns?

The potential for tourism in Moalboal and Badian are tremendous. But there are no plans to fix the beaches and the waterfalls, the mountains, and the rivers. There are no plans to connect these two towns to the nearest airport in Dumaguete. There are no plans to explore the massive opportunities for the creation of job opportunities by developing the agriculture of Ronda, Dumanjug and Alcantara. There are no plans to leverage job creation and the tourism in Badian and Moalboal, and from the oil mining in Alegria. And there are no plans how to address the very high poverty incidence in Malabuyoc, Alegria, Badian, and Alcantara. We need concrete and integrated, coherent and purposive plans.

There should be an integrated 7th District socio-economic plan to be implemented by a Southwest Cebu Development Council, to be chaired by the congressman. The people have been waiting for this for the longest time. The time has come for us to see it. Here and now.