Island town dad bares economic benefits from RoRo port construction

By RODRIGO S. VICTORIA (PIA Biliran)
August 4, 2007

NAVAL, Biliran  –  Many economic benefits was how an elated Maripipi Mayor Noel M. Albelda told with the on-going construction of the Roll On-Roll Off port in the island municipality.

The local chief executive (LCE) who is a medical doctor by profession happily informed in an interview with PIA that the P50 million worth, 200-meter length and 20 meters wide port is a major infrastructure project undertaken in the municipality which he firmly believed is the key to the economic boom of Maripipi.

Mayor Albelda said that the RoRo port project implemented in his municipality is part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s (PGMA’s) Nautical Highway Project which is aimed at cutting the travel time thereby lessening the transportation cost of the transporting public to any point in the country.

The construction of the RoRo port project was started in April this year and is expected to be finished for a period of one year, Albelda said.

He informed that the travel routes once the port will be completed include the route from Maripipi-Cataingan, Masbate-Matnog and the other route from Maripipi-Cataingan, Masbate-Lucena City in Quezon province.

However, the 43 year old island town’s chief never discounted the big possibility that it might include another routes such as going to Cebu City or Calbayog City which entails a shorter period of travel time thru commercial sea vessels compared to the usual big motorized pumpboat used by traders in his municipality in transporting goods to and from in those routes.

The first-termer mayor who previously served as the island town vice-mayor for one term said that once the port will be finished, copra traders in the municiplity have now a wide array of choices in shipping their copra to places outside Biliran that offer better price.

According to Mayor Albelda, 70 percent of the total 31 square kilometers land area of the island town is planted to coconut. “That’s why copra is the major agricultural product and likewise the primary source of income of the people in Maripipi”, he said.

He estimated that the copra production in his town ranges from 10 to 15 metric tons per quarter and may even reach up to 20 to 25 metric tons based on the average number of kilos shipped out of town by one of the biggest copra traders in the municipality. One factor that contributes to a bigger copra production is the absence of natural calamities like typhoon and drought, he added.

The completion of the RoRo port will also pave the way to more tourists both local and foreign coming to the island town of Maripipi thus it will greatly help in boosting the local tourism, Mayor Albelda also said.

He added that he is keen on improving one of his town’s famous tourist destinations which is the Sambawan Island, a four islet tourism site where fine, white sand beaches, pristine sea waters, untouched corals good for scuba diving and where tamed turtles crawling freely along the coastline are found.

The forward-looking LCE envisions to develop Sambawan Island into a mini-Boracay in the province of Biliran where tourists can go as an alternative destination.

In fact Mayor Albelda proudly said that one of the siblings of the famous Zobel de Ayala has already visited the island in April of 2006 and in the same month this year after conducting a medical mission in his town.

He added that that sibling of Zobel de Ayala will again visit the place by April 2008 because according to him that fellow really likes the natural beauty of Sambawan Island.