Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will arrive here on Tuesday while another visit here is scheduled in the second week of May.
On Tuesday, the President will be flying from Cebu to Tubigon port to kick off her launching of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway which includes the upgrading of roro port facilities.
Prelude to her Bohol visit, the governors of the four Central Visayas provinces will meet with the President at the Malacanang of the South in Cebu City tomorrow evening.
From the Tubigon Port, the presidential party together with the local officials led by Gov. Aumentado, Reps. Edgar Chatto, Rep. Roberto Cajes and Rep. Adam Jala will proceed to Jagna Port where a waiting vessel will ferry the President and her entourage to Camiguin Island before proceeding to Cagayan de Oro City.
Several Cabinet members, led by Vice Pres. Noli de Castro will be arriving on Tuesday morning for a breakfast press conference at the newly opened elegant function room of Bohol Tropics Resort Club. Pres. Arroyo presides her cabinet meeting on board the vessel.
Meanwhile, Pres. Arroyo will be coming back 10 days later.
This time, she will be laying the capsule for the Panglao Bohol International Airport (PBIA). This will signal the bidding to follow and actual work will commence within the next two months
The day is also designated as the Bohol-Xhianghai Friendship Day wherein the province will pay hosts to visiting Chinese officials and businessmen led by Ambassador Carlos Chan.
The President will do the symbolic switch on of the newly installed lighting facilities at the Loboc River after the day's affair.
For the last seven years, P278-million worth of port links have been set up for Bohol alone.
During her visit, the President will personally lead the caravan that would make history by uniting Cebu, Bohol, Camiguin and Cagayan de Oro in one nautical highway.
By opening the Central Seaboard (CS) of the country's Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH), inter-island travel and transport in the Visayas and Mindanao becomes one step away.
In Bohol, the two key ports, the one in Tubigon and another one in Jagna have been upgraded with roll-on roll off (RORO) ramps and corresponding back up areas and lighting systems to better serve vessels cruising to and from Cebu City and the different ports of Mindanao, says a report from the Tagbilaran Port Office of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA).
At the Tubigon Port, where PGMA inaugurates the improved facility, she would meet the RORO caravan with the rest of the country's top officials and accompanying media taking the run through the newly opened CS of the SRNH.
The country's top executive arrives however on a helicopter to meet the caravan she sent off in Cebu earlier as the RORO docks at the port facility which has seen P144M improvements since 2002.
According to reports by Engr. Rogelio Gambuta, Tagbilaran ports operations manager, the port of Tubigon has had P42.2 million rehabilitation in its reinforced concrete pier in 2002, P69.8 million causeway reclamation and widening in 2004, P10.76 million causeway repairs and improvements in 2005 and improvement of the old reclamation site costing P10.94 million completed last year.
The improvements also include 2 ramps that can together accommodate 2 RORO vessels at any given time. Moreover, the port also has a truck holding area of 1,300 square meters that can hold a maximum of 15 units of rolling cargoes, his reports stated.
He also added that since the implementation of the SRNH, his office noted an increasing trend in RORO shipcalls and a corresponding number of rolling cargoes passed through the port.
Gambuta too explained that recent statistics his office gathered could only mean that a wider business sector acceptance of the roro transport system as a mode of economic inter-island activity has come.
The PPA observation, Tubigon port laborers pointed out, is only as far as Cebu-Bohol is concerned.
Hopes however ignite with the President personally signaling the full operation of yet another RORO route, one that makes inter-island shipping to Camiguin in Mindanao a reality.
After the ceremonial port inauguration and briefing on the SRNH in Tubigon, the President leads the caravan's land trip segment to an exit port in Jagna, about 117 kilometers from Tubigon via Tagbilaran City.
The port of Jagna has also received a total of P144 million since 2003.
The port went through a total rehabilitation, got a terminal office, passenger terminal building, warehouse, guardhouse and deflector wall in 2003 via the government's P15.02 million fund, Gambuta said.
In 2005, a P19.53 million RORO ramp, back up area, lighting system and fences were installed, while phase I of the port improvement project was started with aP54.6 million project in 2006.
Now, the port has an ongoing phase II of its improvement with P55.27 million fund.
Its RORO port equipped with a truck holding area of 3,000 square meters can hold a total of 35 rolling cargo units, would be serving vessels from various ports in Mindanao, PPA said.
In Jagna, the country's cabinet secretaries meet the President's caravan and join her on board another RORO sailing to Mambajao, Camiguin, the seaboard's next port in the link to Mindanao.
Source: The Bohol Chronicle
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