BAGUIO CITY – The local government is setting its sights on a P140 million fund support from the national government, through the tourism department to help fully develop the city Mines View Park and sustain the park as one of the most frequented places in the city year-round.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said that he already signed the pertinent project documents that has been transmitted to the tourism department’s central office for the grant of the requested fund support within the year.
“We will maximize the use of the funds to fully develop Mines View Park and provide our visitors real experiences of the mines in the said area once the funds will be made available to us,” Domogan stressed.
The local chief executive said one of the projects being considered for implementation within the park is the put up of a mine tunnel where people will experience going inside a mine tunnel without visiting the real mine tunnel outside the city.
He said that the project will be done with the support of the Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association (PMSEA) and the Philippine Society of Mining Engineers which had been proposing the project several years ago.
According to him, the development plans for Mines View Park are already in place and the local government is simply awaiting the funds from the tourism department before tapping the expertise of stakeholders to implement the plan.
He emphasized there must be a sustainable development plan for Mines View Park to make it attractive to both visitors considering that even in its present state, it is one of the most frequented visited sites in the city.
The overall development of the city’s Mines View Park is one of the major development projects identified by the city government incorporated under its 2018 Annual Investment Plan to get the required funding support from the relevant government agencies to augment funds from the city.
Domogan remains positive that tourism officials will find merit in the fund request of the city from the national government so that Mines View Park will be developed to its full potential.
He expressed optimism that the funds for the project will be downloaded to the city government so that the relevant city government departments will oversee the implementation of programmed developments.
Earlier, the local government decided to fence the Mines View property that resulted to the eventual removal of the illegal stalls that were erected within the park and the same were transferred to the city-owned building that was constructed to serve as their relocation site after the implementation of the fencing project.
Some 200 stallholders in the park were relocated to the 4-storey building wherein the first 3 floors were supposed to be occupied by the vendors while the top floor of the structure will serve as the barangay hall and multipurpose facility for the barangay.
By Dexter A. See
