"When will the sun and the winds start blowing more kindly upon this plagued earth?"
"When will the sun and the winds start blowing more kindly upon this plagued earth?"
Part II
(Continued from Monday)
Another important legislative measure that will surely benefit Eastern Visayas is House Bill 1155, which seeks to enact the creation of the Eastern Visayas Development Authority, a proposed development agency mandated to promote, coordinate and facilitate the active and extensive participation of all sectors to effect the socioeconomic development of Eastern Visayas.
By providing an integrated and coordinated direction to the agricultural, industrial, economic and social development, EVDA will serve as the lead agency tasked to steer the sound and balanced industrial, economic and social growth of Eastern Visayas. Consistent with the region’s development plan, EVDA will craft and implement programs and projects that will increase trade, tourism and investments in the region, encourage private enterprise and advance efforts towards progress and development.
The creation of EVDA is a response to the need to establish an effective institutional mechanism to be exercised through a unified responsive agency. This will address the need for a coordinated and integrated approach not only in the formulation, but more importantly, in the implementation of the plans, programs and projects geared towards economic growth and development in the region, including the establishment, among others, of special economic zones and agricultural growth centers and support of the required social innovations.
Both EVDA and LEIZ will surely accelerate the realization of the region’s development goals, by carefully matching its regional investment priorities and promotion strategies are in sync with its development needs and its regional strengths such as its advantageous geographical location, its skilled human resources, and its immense tourism potentials.
Much has been achieved, yet so much more needs to be done. While it can be said that being trapped in poverty is not just about the poor choices we made, but for region for free itself from the shackles of poverty, it must make the choice not to simply survive, but to thrive.
The EVDA and the LEIZ project is a vision that adamantly says, we refuse to be poor.
This is the choice that we are committed to fight for.
“We go our way in haste, without worrying that gaps are increasing, that the greed of a few is adding to the poverty of many others.” Pope Francis.