With PBBM witnessing…

RDC-7 seeks DOTr fund for

FS on Metro Tagb monorail

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol Feb 22 (PIA)—With no less than President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., attending the meeting with key members of the Regional Development Council in Region 7, the council led by Bohol Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado has formally presented for presidential push, the funding for the feasibility study of the ambitious Metro-Tagbilaran monorail project.

A monorail is an urban mass transport train with a single track elevated rail supported by beams that allow train wagons to glide through to established stations while moving commuters.

First presented to the RDC via the Development Administration Committee led by Boholano sectoral representative Argeo Melisimo, the monorail project is a sudden jump which Boholanos see as a better alternative project than the Panglao Airport to Tagbilaran City Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

It may be recalled that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has in its second tier of projects for the Central Visayas and its airports, the BRT.

BRT is a high quality bus transport which promises to provide a faster and reliable transportation system that uses dedicated lanes, bus-only routes, priorities in traffic snags, systematized fare collection system, and related infrastructure that may include elevated highways and platforms, to be assure of rapid commutes.

For Melisimo, who is familiar with the worsening traffic in the city and its outlaying towns, putting in the BRT could significantly contribute to the worsening traffic in metro Tagbilaran City areas, not to mention the pollution that it can add to the already decaying air quality over the metropolitan areas.

The monorail, owing to its dedicated rails offer reliable mass transport, environment friendly and an easy infrastructure set-up with cheaper operational costs.

Aumentado said the RDC DAC chairman proposed for the monorail system that runs from Alburquerque to Tagbilaran via Baclayon, Panglao to Tagbilaran via Dauis, and Maribojoc to Tagbilaran via Cortes. Another line is proposed for Corella to Tagbilaran.

As the RDC DAC has asked the DOTr to reconsider its tier 2 project and fund instead the feasibility study of the monorail system, this time it was the RDC 7 time to present to the president the monorail as among Central Visayas’ priority projects.

During the meeting, with the president in attendance, the RDC 7 resolved to request the DOTr to set aside the Panglao Airport-Tagbilaran BRT and instead fund the feasibility study of the monorail.

With the proposal for the feasibility study for the metro-Tagbilaran monorail, it also sought for the feasibility of other mass transport projects in the urban centers of Cebu, Bohol and Negros Oriental. (PIABohol)

FOR PRESIDENTIAL ADOPTION. RDC 7, with President Ferdinand Marcos witnessing, pushed for the government funding on the feasibility studies of the MetroTagbilaran monorail and other mass transport systems in the urban centers in the Visayas. (PIABohol)

16 months in transition

Mining revenues jump

from P11.9M to 52.9M

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Feb 21 (PIA)—Barangays are at the frontlines in monitoring mining activities, as per the Local Government Code of 1991, and as such, that responsibility comes with great payback.

For their efforts in monitoring the small scale mining activities that are happening under their jurisdictions based on the LGC of 1991, barangay shares in mining revenues leapt 444 percent in the last 16 months and first 16 months of administration changes in the Capitol.

Since the effectivity of the Provincial Ordinance No 2020-035 or the Revised Bohol Mining Ordinance, from P11.9 million revenues in the last 16 months of the past administration in 2021 and 2022, the figure zoomed to P52.9 million in the same length of time in the remaining quarter of 2022 to 2023, under the administration of Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado.

In 2021, or after the Ordinance took effect, revenues reached 8 million, while the first half of the year registered P3.9 million or a total of 11.9 million in 16 months.

In the next half of 2022, or after the elections, under Aumentado, Bohol collected P12.8 million while in 2023, the total annual mining revenue reached P40.1 million; P52.9 million in the first 16 months of the new administration.

While people credit the additional cash inflow for barangays and towns representing their shares in the mining revenues to the systems implemented in the collection, the elimination of red tape and corruption, much of the hard work actually comes from barangays which have now been actively doing their shares, thus getting the bigger priority development funds.

In 2024, the revenues collected from an average of 50 small scale mining permittees reached P48.847 million, reports Malig-on.

According to Section 36 of the Revised Bohol Mining Ordinance (RBMO), as mining permit holders pay extraction fees, the for the sand, gravel, quarry resources and other minerals are extracted, the barangay as monitors making sure there is no over extraction of the resources gets 40 percent share of the proceeds, reminds Bohol Environment Protection Task Force (BEPTF) head, retired army official Eduardo Malig-on.

The RBMO, or Provincial Ordinance No 2020-035, provides stringent regulations for the issuances of small scale mining permits, quarry, sand and gravel, and other mineral extraction permits while establishing the mechanisms for their issuances and imposing taxes on the extracted materials as well as providing for administrative fines and penalties.

Guesting the Kapihan sa PIA which tackled environment protection in Bohol as a strategic development policy direction. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Malig-on added that in the sharing of the proceeds, the municipality where these quarry resources are extracted gets 30 percent, while the provincial government also gets another 30 percent.

For the municipal governments, the RBMO mandates that the governor designates municipal deputies tasked as additional level of security for a protected and regulated resources use, in cases when the barangays are incapable of putting a system of monitoring as provided in the implementation of the ordinance.

On the other hand, the provincial government, as to the provision of the ordinance, forms the BEPTF, Malig-on explained.

Stressing the importance of protecting the environment, especially that Bohol has been enlisted in the UNESCO list of global geoparks, something that can be stricken out when the UNESCO sees Bohol unable to maintain and manage the sustainability of the sites, the BEPTF takes the responsibility assigned to them by the ordinance and the call to be a Boholano as biased for the environment.

And the Ordinance paid off, the retired army official said.

In 2023, with the coordinated action of barangays, municipal governments and the BEPTF, Bohol collected some P40.1 million, something that surprised the barangays which have been getting a pittance of the shares in the small scale mining activities all over Bohol. (RAHC/PIA-7/Bohol)