Ilocos, Cebu explore sisterhood partnership

CEBU, Philippines - Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos visited Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday to formally discuss her desire to establish sisterhood ties with the Province of Cebu.

If materialized, Ilocos Norte will be the second sister-province of Cebu in the Philippines after the Province of Antique.

Marcos told reporters she is pushing for joint projects along the lines of trade, tourism and information technology.   She said the two provinces can also work together to promote each other’s tourism, considering that both have international airports. A first step is to open direct flights from Cebu to Laoag and vice-versa.

She said Cebuanos are very welcome to Ilocos Norte, as the latter is said to be suffering from a declining population due to migration.

“Marami nang manufacturing design and software development sa Cebu. We have a lot of lessons to learn and lot of technology transfer,” Marcos said.

Like Cebu, Marcos said education is becoming a big business in Ilocos Norte with the presence of English language schools for the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese.

“Hopefully, education exchanges not only government to government but also private sector because it’s very important that we have student and academe learn from each other and make friends from each other. Same situation in Cebu, we need to exchange learning software and other technology for language development,” Marcos added

“Gov. Garcia is an action woman, kailangan may listan na ng project agad,” Marcos added.

Ilocos Norte as a province thrives from agriculture and remittances. Marcos said that they still have a lot to learn from Cebu.

Garcia, for her part, described Ilocos Norte as a “beautiful place with no idle lands.” She said she has personally seen that the province is “so clean” and is aggressive in efforts to preserve its culture and heritage by preserving its historical landmarks.

Garcia said Cebu can also look at the wind farm in Pagudpud as a model for Cebu’s own renewable energy initiative.

“The direction of Cebu is to invest in renewable energy as part of 2011 budget…we can learn a lot from Ilocos Norte,” Garcia said.

Cebu Province has existing sisterhood ties with foreign provinces including Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Sichuan of the People’s Republic of China. (FREEMAN)