FORMER Bogo City Mayor Celestino “Junie” Martinez Jr. has expressed concern that the towns and cities outside Metro Cebu may be lagging behind in terms of infrastructure development.
Martinez bared this during a regular news forum which he attended with some members of the Metro Cebu Development and Coordinating Board (MCDCB) in a hotel in Cebu City on Tuesday, November 13.
“Let us not develop Metro Cebu, not a few cities but the entire province of Cebu,” Martinez said.
Martinez lamented that while several road network projects within the metropolis have started and some others are in the pipeline, roads going to the northern and southern parts of the province remain narrow.
Bogo City alone, Martinez said, is home to “four colleges and industries that make it a center for commerce and education in the north.”
Elizar Sabinay Jr., Capability Training and Education Officer of the MCDCB-Research, Program and Organizational Development (RPOD), however, assured that the MCDCB projects will be spread out to the entire province.
Sabinay said they are already in consultation with the mayors of local government units (LGUs) outside Metro Cebu to proceed with the Provincial Framework Development Plan.
Sabinay added that the Mass Rapid Transit, a railway project that will stretch over 90 kilometers from Carcar City in the south to Danao City in the north, is already undergoing feasibility study.
Based on the timeline of the Urban Transport Master Plan crafted by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Jica) for MCDCB, the one-year detailed engineering design for the railway will start in 2019.