Pabling will push for more districts

An agenda that former governor Pablo Garcia will push if he gets elected as congressman in the May 14 elections would be the creation of more congressional districts in the province and also Cebu city.

Garcia, who was representative of the 3rd District before he became governor, is now running for the seat in the 2nd District.

The creation of additional districts, according to Garcia, could be the solution to the demand of some Cebuano lawmakers to break up the province.

In an interview over Bantay Radyo, Garcia said that if the requirements in creating more congressional districts are followed, the entire Cebu is qualified to have at least 15 congressmen.

"Cebu is under represented in the House," Garcia said.

Garcia said that the population of Cebu is even bigger to the entire Bicol region.

For an area to be considered as a congressional district, it must have a population of at least 250,000.

Cebu province and Cebu City have already a combined population of more than 3.7-million.

As a consequence, Garcia said, the existing composition of the district would be changed since some towns can be grouped into another district

The first district for instance which is now composed of six local government units from Talisay City to Sibonga town, can be composed only of Talisay, Minglanilla and Naga.

He also said that the Central District can be added to the current North and South Districts in Cebu City.

Garcia said that having more congressmen also makes the voice of Cebu bigger and louder in Congress

In effect, there would be more Priority Development Assistance Funds coming in and if there are priority bills, these can easily be acted for having the soon to be called "Cebu bloc" in Congress

At present, each congressman receives P70-million PDAF every year for projects in the district.

"Maayo pa ni kaysa buak-buakon," he said referring to the proposed creation of three more provinces out of the original province that are supposed to be called Cebu del Sur, Cebu Occidental and Cebu del Norte

The proposed Cebu del Sur is the second district of Rep. Simeon Kintanar; Cebu Occidental is the third district of Rep. Antonio Yapha Jr and Cebu del Norte is the fourth district of Rep. Clavel Asas-Martinez, who are all in their last term in office.

Except for Kintanar, Yapha and Martinez are seeking to be elected as governor and vice governor, respectively in the province they wanted to break up.

The proposal to divide Cebu into smaller provinces has been opposed by most of the Cebuano people led by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez Jr. who initiated the Anti-Sugbuak movement.

The former governor said that to create additional congressional districts is long overdue.

Garcia is confident that his proposal would get the support of lawmakers and other local government officials since it would not affect them particularly in terms of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

At present, Cebu province has six districts while Cebu City has two districts.

These are represented by Rep. Eduardo Gullas (1st), Kintanar (2nd), Yapha (3rd), Martinez (4th), Rep. Ramon Durano VI (5th) and Rep Nerissa Soon-Ruiz (6th). Cebu City has Rep. Raul del Mar in the north and Rep. Antonio Cuenco in the south district.

With these eight congressman, Cebu gets a PDAF of P420 million annually. If there are 15, this will total to P1.05 billion. (/NLQ)