SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga —Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan has been appointed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte as the new chairman of the Regional Development Council in Central Luzon.
Pamintuan replaces Bulacan Gov. Willy Alvarado, and faces issues of congestion, unemployment, investments and other challenges as he tries to steer the region to new heights.
The Region 3 development council is composed of national government regional offices in Central Luzon. The National Economic and Development Authority, as secretariat of the council, submitted the names of Alvarado and Pamintuan for the chairmanship of the regional body to the President.
Duterte appointed Pamintuan, who is also the president of the City Mayor’s League of the Phillippines, and made it official last Dec. 12, said Ceb Santos, Neda regional director.
Pamintuan, who is out of the country as an adviser to the Philippines panel in the ongoing peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front in Oslo, Norway, will serve for three years.
The RDC is the highest planning and policymaking body in the region, seeks to invite investors both foreign and local to support and complement the existing projects in Central Luzon like the Green City inside Clark. It is also tasked to develop and boost the of growth of Corregidor, Subic, Clark and this city, Santos said. Romeo Dizon
Other challenges facing the region are the development of tourism, small and medium enterprises, and improving the services industry, “which are the best ways to generate employment in the region,” he added.
Small and medium enterprises are now the focus of the government with technical and financial support from other agencies having the same purpose of decreasing unemployment in the area, Santos said.
With almost one million hectares of irrigated agricultural land out of its total 800,000 square kilometers of area, Central Luzon can increase to 20 percent from 18 percent its present contribution to the total rice requirement of the country, the NEDA director said.
Santos said the region, especially Nueva Ecija and Tarlac where the bulk of rice production comes, must be supported with irrigation, high-reed seeds, and machineries to boost production with food processing, specially halal foods both for export and local markets.