BAGUIO CITY—Abra Gov. Maria Jocelyn Valera-Bernos on Wednesday said the provincial government will embark on tourism and infrastructure development as the driver of its desired growth, to help move the people of the province “out from the shackles of poverty in the future.”
Valera-Bernos, who personally attended the joint Regional Peace and Order Council and Regional Development Council meeting at the Mansion House here last Friday, said the 303 barangays and 27 municipalities of Abra are rich with potential tourist destinations.
These could be maximized through the aggressive implementation of infrastructure development that will propel the province’s economy in the future, she said.
“We have struggled to get out from the bad image being depicted of the province, that is why we are working extra hard to aggressively implement the desired infrastructure development province-wide to allow the discovery of our rich tourism potentials,” the governor said.
“We want Abra to be known as one of the prime tourist destinations in the north in the future and we want our people to benefit from the potentials of tourism in their places,” Valera-Bernos told the RPOC and RDC members during the presentation of the Abra security plan for the upcoming Unity Gong Relay.
The governor said local officials are trying their best to rid their places of the spate of killings “that tend to affect the overall image of the province when published and broadcasted.” She encouraged the active participation of concerned sectors in making sure the occurrence of untoward incidents that will compromise the province’s peace and order situation should be avoided.
Abra has been branded as the killing fields of the north from the early 1980s up to early 2000s because of the reported brutal murder of influential individuals and their supporters there.
The governor pointed out that efforts of the local government are being geared toward the appropriate infrastructure development, so that tourist areas around the province could be explored, developed and maximized for their potential in bringing development to the remote villages of the province.
Valera-Bernos said it is “unavoidable” that killings happen in the different parts of the province, but based on police reports, these untoward incidents could be attributed to personal grudges and revenge, and no longer politically motivated as what had been happening in the past.
To show Cordillerans the state of development that Abra was able to achieve over the past several decades, she extended the invitation to the RPOC and RDC to hold their future joint meetings in the province.
She guaranteed the local government “will always be a gracious host to the conduct of such regional activities in their place” to help correct the lingering negative impression of Abra, and for the people to be able to appreciate its growth potentials in the future.
The RPOC and RDC leadership are considering holding the joint third and fourth quarter meetings in either Apayao or Abra depending on which province will be able to submit their intentions as Apayao had already proposed to host the joint September meetings of the two councils.