Pagadian City, the provincial capital of Zamboanga del Sur, has begun an ambitious development project aimed at turning the once sleepy mountain enclave into a bustling trading and government regional centre in southern Philippines.
Home to about 160,000 people, Pagadian with a total land area of 37,880 hectares and 13 urban and 41 rural villages is one of the most vibrant and promising cities in Mindanao, said Mayor Samuel Co.
He said the increase in development projects was triggered by the recent shifting of major government regional agencies from Zamboanga City to Pagadian.
Also, the impending relocation near Pagadian of the Southern Command, the largest military installation outside Manila, now based in Zamboanga City.
"We have allocated hundreds of millions of pesos to fund new infrastructure projects and development of the regional centre, the rehabilitation of our air and sea ports and renovation of government buildings and sophisticated communications and other information technology projects that would put Pagadian on the map of developed cities, not only in the Philippines, but also abroad," Co said.
He said Pagadian is currently working on a 115-million peso (Dh7.34 million) fishing port complex, 64-million peso (Dh4.1 million) public market, and 14- million peso integrated bus depot.
Co yesterday surveyed a large area in Pagadian where he is planning to put up a multimillion-peso fruit processing plant.
"We have a lot of work to do. Right now, we are busy on some development projects and we are also working on how to improve our ecotourism programme," he said.
Co said he also introduced the use of water wheels to generate electricity for farmers in far-flung villages.
"Farmers are happy about the water wheels. They were seeing them only in books and television, but now we are using water wheels to generate electricity in remote villages," he said.
He said the local airliner Asian Spirit has opened new passenger flights between Manila and Pagadian.
"We really worked hard and negotiated for this, and the Asian Spirit now has regular flights from Manila to Pagadian and back," he said.
President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the shifting this year of all regional offices and agencies to Pagadian to make access to government offices easier for people of Western Mindanao region comprising Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur provinces.
Arroyo's decision to shift the regional offices was based on Executive Order 429 issued by President Corazon Aquino in October 1990.
Co said the provincial government will bear the rent of regional government offices for six months as a goodwill gesture to welcome the thousands of new tenants.
Co said the latest agencies that moved in to Pagadian on Friday were the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Philippine Coconut Authority both were based in Zamboanga City.
Agriculture and fishery are the main sources of income of local residents, but Co said the city is being groomed to become the region's main source of mango and seaweed capital.
"Fishing is a major economic activity and also lumber processing due to the peninsula's excellent stands of Philippine hardwoods."
An attractive investment package would be offered to local and foreign business groups, he said.
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