• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said yesterday that he will endorse Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez to be the first chairperson of the Regional Development Council (RDC) of the newly-created Negros Island Region (NIR).
While there is no call yet for submission of names for RDC chairman, as the three governors of the NIR still have to sit down to discuss it, Lacson said it will be President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who will choose from the names to be submitted to him.
“We don’t even know if it would be practical to appoint one, considering that by October, we would have filed our certificates of candidacy, and the focus maybe on the elections,” he added.
“But when the time comes that we have to submit names then, of course, I will endorse Mayor Albee Benitez to be the first RDC chairman of NIR,” Lacson said.
On Tuesday, Benitez presided over the RDC-Western Visayas second quarter full council meeting held at the L’ Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City.
Among the agenda was the drafting of the National Security Strategy for 2024 and the presentation of the National Security Policy for 2024-2028 which is under the Executive Order No. 37 signed by the President.
Also discussed were the endorsement of the recommendation of the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Inter-Island Link Bridge Project steering committee to appoint the Department of Public Works and Highways Unified Project Management Office as its co-chairperson, and the proposed Capiz circumferential and coastal road project of the Department of Public Works and Highways. | GB
