Major change in WV priorities seen
There will be a major change in the priorities of Western Visayas as the Regional Development Council 6 prepares to craft its Medium Term Regional Development Plan, a report of the Philippine News Agency said.
In addition to agriculture and tourism, Western Visayas should also “deliberately respond on issues of power, energy and more importantly on how development will be felt by the disadvantaged groups,” National Economic and Development Authority 6 Director Ro-Ann Bacal said.
Bacal is the vice chairperson of the RDC 6, the region’s highest policy-making body.
She said there are two options in responding to the needs of disadvantaged sectors – first, through direct services and second, through the trickledown effect by attracting investments so it can be translated to employment.
“They can be attracted if we have a stable power supply. We can only be more competitive if we can deal with this. But this is not to say that we are doing badly. We are the third fastest-growing region in the country,” Bacal said.
She said the focus now is to “bring down the cost of power” as it should not be just a “matter of being self-sufficient.”
”We have plenty of independent power producers but the cost of power is still at P13 per kilowatt hour,” Bacal said.
She said she hopes that power prices will be reduced drastically so that “more investors will come here rather than elsewhere.”*
