- CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Senate has approved on third and final reading March 13 the creation of a Department of Public Works and Highways district engineering office (DEO) to serve cities and towns in the first district of Negros Occidental.
House Bill 1043, authored by Negros Occidental representatives Gerardo Valmayor (1st District), Alfredo Marañon III (2nd District), Juliet Marie Ferrer (4th District), and Mercedes Alvarez (6th District), as well as Ako Bicol Partylist Rep. Elizaldy Co, said that this DPWH DEO, to be called the Negros Occidental Fifth DEO and located in San Carlos, shall serve the cities of Escalante and San Carlos, and the municipalities of Toboso, Calatrava, and Salvador Benedicto, all located in the 1st Legislative District of the province.
The DPWH secretary shall include in the department’s program the operationalization of the Negros Occidental Fifth DEO, the funding of which shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.
Senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Works, who sponsored the passage of the bill, said this will make “public service, through public works, more accessible to the people.”
“We are bringing the service closer to our countrymen so that they can benefit from it more easily,” Revilla said in his omnibus sponsorship speech.
“We are all in agreement that public infrastructure and road works, which are the major outputs of the DPWH, are the backbone of our economy,” he stressed in a Senate statement. “Localizing these public works through the creation of district engineering offices is a helpful contribution to our national aim of economic development.”
Aside from HB 1043, the Senate also approved the creation of DEOs in the Third Legislative District of Bataan, and Fourth Legislative District of Bukidnon.
“In creating these district engineering offices, we are likewise empowering our LGUs, so that they will be able to address exigencies of infrastructure in their respective localities. We support them as they take each step towards serving the needs of their constituents,” Revilla said./CGC
