Congressman Chong bares programs, projects to be funded by his CDF

By RODRIGO S. VICTORIA (PIA Biliran)
July 5, 2007

NAVAL, Biliran  –  The newly sworn representative of the Lone District of Biliran, Representative Glenn A. Chong, publicly announced infront of the Biliranons who swarmed the jampacked NIT Gymnasium on Saturday, June 30, 2007 how the P70 million Countrywide Development Fund (CDF) commonly known as “pork barrel” he is entitled to for this year will be spent.

He informed that the P70 million CDF will be allocated to the following programs and projects that were part of his campaign promises and where the young representative believed could help improve the lives of the people he is representing in Congress.

He said that he will give the amount of P200,000 in each of the 132 barangays in the province of Biliran or P26.4 million in all which will be spent to finance various infrastructure projects in the barangay. However, he urged the barangay captains to also ask a counterpart from Governor Rogelio J. Espina in triple amount of what he will release to the barangays since the province has a bigger budget in the form of Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) coming from the national government than his CDF.

On the aspect of education, Rep. Chong promised to allocate P5 million to further improve the educational status of Biliranons. He also made mentioned of continuing to support the scholarship program provided by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) especially in the provision of technical-vocational education to Biliranons. However, he requested the agency to facilitate the monitoring of the number of the Biliranons who have already landed a job thru the agency’s tech-voc program in the province.

Furthermore, he informed that he will also allocate the amount of P5 million to help finance the different economic activities, undertakings, programs and projects that are geared towards propelling the economy of the province to greater heights that in one way or the other will help improve the economic conditions of the Biliranons.

Not leaving behind the welfare and development of the eight municipalities comprising the lone legislative district, the young representative who is a lawyer and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) by profession will allocate the amount of P16 million to be proportionately accorded to the eight local government units.

He specifically cited the provision of a school bus in the municipality of Naval as part of his commitment to help ease the transportation cost which financially burden parents in sending their children to school especially to those who are living far from the schools where the students are studying.

The remaining P17.6 million will be spent for the continuation in the concreting of unpaved roads mostly found in the municipalities situated in the eastern part of the province starting from Biliran-Cabucgayan-Caibiran-Culaba-Kawayan road sections covering approximately 53 kilometers of the province circumferential road.

However, Rep. Chong vows the completion in the concreting of the remaining 53 kilometers of unpaved circumferential road despite the very limited fund of his CDF since this was what he promised to Biliranons during the campaign.

Despite the very limited fund of his CDF, the young solon is very optimistic that he can stand on what he promised to his constituents and swear that he can finish the road concreting within his term.

Meanwhile, Rep. Chong reveals in public the different bills of national and local significance he will espouse or support when the 14th Congress opens its regular session this month.

He said that he will strongly support the aborted cheap medicine bill principally authored by Senator Mar Roxas in the Senate or when bill of the same nature will be re-filed in the House of Representatives since it is very helpful to the majority of the Filipinos who are facing financial difficulties in securing medicines especially branded ones due to its high costs.

The neophyte lawmaker would like also to introduce amendments to a provision of the Labor Code prescribing the training spent by medical students during their internships in hospitals to only eight hours.

He also proposes to introduce a bill that would consolidate the registration of lands for a faster and easy registration that will directly help landowners in facilitating release of financial loans where their registered real properties will serve as collateral.

Likewise, he publicly informed the people who attended the oath taking ceremony that he will refile the bill espousing the conversion of the Naval Institute of Technology (NIT) into its university status since it is the dream of every Biliranon that a university will soon rise in the province.

Though the universityhood of NIT was not realized by the previous set of lawmakers in the Lone District of Biliran for a long period of time, he promised that he will work for the realization of NIT’s university status within his term of office as representative of the people in Biliran to Congress.

The first timer representative stressed in his inaugural speech that his winning in the congressional seat of the Lone District of Biliran is a big miracle and that only a miracle will also help realize all the gargantuan tasks that lie ahead as representative of the people in Biliran province.