Officials in the region led by City Mayor Sara Duterte are pushing for the creation of Metro Davao in which key cities and towns will be compressed as one.
In a press conference held at the City Mayor’s Office yesterday, Mayor Duterte said they will soon request the Office of the President to issue a Presidential Proclamation for the creation of Metropolitan Davao and its development authority.
“The creation of Metropolitan Davao means that we move as one,” Duterte told reporters yesterday.
The proposal will include the cities of Davao, Digos in Davao del Sur, and Panabo and Tagum in Davao del Norte. Also included are the first class towns of Sta. Cruz in Davao del Sur and Carmen in Davao del Norte.
The possibility of including Nabunturan, the capital town of the newly named Davao de Oro (formerly Compostela Valley), is still under study.
The Island Garden City of Samal, an island city of Davao del Norte, was not included in the discussion.
Among the common factors that the Metropolitan Davao Development Authority will handle include disaster sectors, garbage-assigned sectors, traffic sectors, and infrastructure sectors. “These are the common sectors identified,” Duterte said.
Duterte said initial processing has been done already.
She revealed that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) conducted a meeting last Wednesday to discuss the creation of the Metro Davao development plan.
“We already have briefing session with NEDA on how to implement and create Metropolitan Davao,” she said.
The next activity, Duterte said, will be the presentation of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) to the committee, regarding its plans for the proposal.
The mayor said the presentation of MinDA plan may be useful for the creation of the project.
She said they are also set to present to the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) the security planning.
“We’ll request them to make a technical working group for the creation of the security plan of Metro Davao,” Duterte added.
The Regional Development Council has also supported the plan, she said.
Mayor Duterte is hopeful that the MDDA will be operational by 2021 or 2022, depending on approval of the Office of the President.
“This work takes time, especially the planning. We already started the work to keep the ball rolling,” she said.
Mayor Duterte said they are targeting to have Presidential Proclamation because “Congress takes a lot of time to process.”
