THE administrator of the Southern Philippines Development Authority has expressed confidence last week President Duterte will issue within the month an executive order recalling a 2015 memo that sought to abolish the SPDA as a government-owned and controlled corporation.
“I was assured I was not appointed to an office that is abolished,” SPDA administrator Abdulgani ‘Gerry’ Salapuddin told reporters in Davao City.
He said the assurance came from no less than Executive Secretary Cesar Medaldia and Presidential Management Staff Secretary Christopher ‘Bong’ Go.
Salupudin, a former governor and congressman of Basilan, said that with the lifting of the memorandum, the SPDA can now move forward in implementing several master plans for different projects in Mindanao while Duterte remains President.
Salapudin also sees a crucial role for the SPDA in the implementation of the first phase of railway system that would initially connect the cities of Tagum, Davao and Digos.
“The fastest way is for the SPDA to create a corporation that will run the railway system instead of having to go through the legislative mill,” he said, adding he preferred a system that would avoid the operational lapses of the Metropolitan Railway Transit in Metro Manila.
The SPDA administrator said another priority is the establishment of an investment forum in Davao and Manila in a bid to generate investments.
He said this will be matched by trade missions abroad to attract investments that would help trigger the development of Mindanao.
Salapudin said that in Davao City, the SPDA has completed the master plan for the establishment of the proposed Asia Pacific Medical City (APMC), which will rise on a 4.7 hectare (ha.) SPDA-owned land in Catalunan Pequeño. The medical city will have a college of medicine, hospital, a commercial complex and well-ness Center.
The estimated cost of this undertaking alone is pegged at P10Billion to P20Billion.
The SPDA administrator said he has also been around Mindanao to visit the authority’s 50 land properties, including a 24,000-hectare property in Wao, Lanao del Sur that is projected to be developed by an investor to produce Halal feeds for Halal-bound animals in Saudi Arabaia.
Most of these properties will have to be developed by investors with the land as our counterpart, he said.
He said the SPDA may soon take over its properties in Catalunan Pequeno once the Department of Agrarian Reform vacates the premises.
THE Southern Philippines Development Authority, a government-owned and controlled corporation, was created by Presidential Decree 690 in the 1970s “to foster and accelerate the balanced growth of Southern Philippines.”
But 40 years of mismanagement has failed to realize the authority’s vision of transforming itself into a conglomerate, leading finally to a memo by Government-owned and government-controlled corporations (GOGCC) existence that declared its abolition.
Salapuddin says that Duterte administration, the SPDA will be able to fulfil its mandate and help bring about peace and development in Mindanao. (JKL)
