TABUK CITY. Kalinga – Some one hundred sixty hectares of prime land in this component city is being targeted by the city government to be declared by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. as a government reservation as part of the ongoing efforts to ensure the city’s readiness to cater to public needs in the future.
Mayor Darwin C. Estran͂ero says that the prime property is located between the boundary of Kalinga and Isabela which is suitable to government needs in the future because it is characterized to be rolling hills and overlooking the city and other parts of the Cagayan Valley.
Further, he claimed that the issuance of a Presidential Proclamation declaring the area as a government reservation will allow the city to accommodate the regional center once the Cordillera will achieve the desired autonomous status in the future.
“Tabuk will surely be ready to accommodate the regional offices of the government line agencies once the Cordillera will become an autonomous region that is why the local government is trying to establish the foundation of the government center by requesting the president to issue the requisite Presidential Proclamation reserving the property for government use. Our comprehensive land use plan (CLUP) already provided the classification of lands in the different parts of the city which is part of our preparations for urbanization,” Mayor Estran͂ero stressed.
Earlier, the Regional Development Council Cordillera Administrative Region (RDC-CAR) declared lower Kalinga, including Tabuk City, as part of the Eastern Kalinga Growth Center and the possible regional center of the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) once the people will ratify the proposed autonomy law that will be enacted by Congress for the realization of the constitutional provision mandating the establishment of autonomous regions in the Cordillera and Muslim Mindanao.
The city chief executive assured autonomy advocates that the city is ready to host the regional offices of the government agencies and become the regional center of the autonomous region because the local government is already trying to address the gaps from its earlier status as a municipality to a component city.
According to him, the enormous influx of investments translating to the significant increase in businesses contributed in gradually increasing the internally generated resources of the local government with the hope that the same will be sustained as the city continues to be grow as one of the future center of trade and commerce in the region,
Under the city’s CLUP, the construction of structures within 100 meters from the center of the road will not be allowed to address potential congestions in the future.
Moreover, the conversion of agricultural lands within the said distance from the center of the road will also be prohibited to avoid the eventual loss of the farmlands in the city.
Tabuk is also the rice granary of the Cordillera having tens of thousands of hectares of rice-producing agricultural lands that made Kalinga as the rice granary of the Cordillera for the longest period of time.
The mayor admitted that since Tabuk was converted into a component city by virtue of the pertinent provisions of Republic Act (RA) 9404 which was ratified by the people on June 24, 2007, the pace of development had been steady increasing through the years that is why the local government worked on the implementation of strategic measures to mitigate the effects of the massive conversion of agricultural lands to commercial areas and the influx of people from remote areas wanting to land in gainful employment in the city. By Dexter A. See