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DURIANBURGDAVAO
mindanao newsblog
Monthly Archives: December 2011
MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR !
THE DURIAN POST NO. 90 – DAVAO CITY NOW ENTERING AGE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
Davao City now entering era of industrialization
STEELASIA STEEL ROLLING MILL PLANT
BY ROGER M. BALANZA
Two more of three major features of industrialization are rising up in Davao City—the US$400 million AboitizPower coal-fired power plant and the P2 billion SteelAsia rolling steel plant — to complete the city’s firepower as a key economic player in Mindanao’s and the country’s future.
Power, steel and cement are acknowledged as primary elements of industrialization, and could add more punch to Davao City’s image as Mindanao’s premier city and hub of the southern island’s trade and commerce.
The latest comer to Davao City’s investment scene is SteelAsia, which will put up the P2 billion rDavao Rolling Mill Plant through its subsidiary New Carcar Manufacturing. To be located in Bunawan District in the city’s industrial zone, the project is seeking from the Davao City Council the reclassification of its plant site to heavy industrial. SteelAsia has existing plants in Luzon and Visayas. The Davao City plant would serve the construction needs of Mindanao.
The second of the trio of key industries needed for industrialization, the AboitizPower coal-fired power plant has hurdled the last requirement from the local government with the conversion of its plant site in Toril into a heavy industrial zone.
Both projects are to start construction in 2012.
The Holcim Philippines cement factory now backed by the giant Swiss cement maker is the third element in the city’s industrialization. The former Bacnotan Cement located in Ilang, Bunawan District, the plant has been a major producer for Mindanao’s cement need since the late 60s.
The role in the city’s march to the age of industrialization of the 
triumvirate of the vital industries, comes as Davao City continues to draw an invasion of large-scale investors in housing, property development, information technology, tourism, high-rise building construction and other key investment areas.
Year 2011 has been more than upbeat for Davao City, clinching further its image as a premier investment haven with the tsunami of investments flooding the city.
Investors are lured to Davao City by its ideal location in Southern Mindanao, its excellent, unlimited workforce of semi-skilled and skilled workers and ability to absorb any kind of industry in its 244,000-ha area.
Governance, tax incentives and peace and order—the flagship project of Mayor Sara Duterte and her father, Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte—also play key role in attracting investors that now include big players in Asia.
THE DURIAN POST TOP STORIES FOR 2011
Sendong’s fury punches out
Sara Punch as 2011 top story
BY ROGER M. BALANZA & JOANNA C. BALANZA
The year-end mass slaughter of more than 1000 people by killer floods triggered by Typhoon Sendong is The Durian Post “Top Story for 2011.”
Coming out second is the Sara Punch, a series of punches dished out by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte to the face of court Sheriff Abe Andres for junking her plea to stay rhe demolition of
more than 200 urban poor shanties middle of the year in Agdao District.
Flash floods from Sendong which lashed Mindanao in December and killed more than 1000 people in Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City is the worst natural disaster that visited the southern island.
Ironically, the disastrous flood as a heart-rending element in the tragic Sendong saga was also a factor in the Sara Punch brouhaha.
Mayor Duterte in late July cut short attending to a relief operation for victims of a killer flood that wept through five barangays in Davao City’s southern district killing more than 30 people and displacing 10,000, and faced up with Andres at the scene of the court-ordered demolition in Soliman Street kilometers away from the flood scene.
She punched Andres several times when he refused to stay the demolition over her plea she be given two hours to abort the court order.
The mayoral punches were captured on video by local television news crews, played up on local and national television networks, radio and newspapers and gained worldwide prominence with its airing on CNN and other international televsion networks.
The assault gained both anger and praise: Urban poor groups hailed Mayor Duterte as a hero of the homeless poor, while critics filed charges before the Office of the Ombudsman, the Supreme Court (Mayor Duterte is a lawyer), and with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The proposed AboitizPower coal-fired power plant, seeking permits from the Davao City local government, landed third as top story, with the loud opposition it triggered among environmentalist groups.
The nearly year-long emotional public debate–marked by rallies and pickets, and wide media coverage—over its potential threat to people and environment ended in an executive-legislative squabble over an approved ordinance—the last local requirement the Aboitiz-owned power firm needed to proceed with the construction of the plant—that converted its 24-hectare plant site in Binugao, Toril in Davao City into a heavy-industrial zone.
The Davao City Council overrode a veto of the ordinance by Mayor Sara Duterte putting a cap to the long debate over the power plant strongly supported by Mayor
Rodrigo Duterte, who said the AboitizPower project responds to future power crisis and Davao City’s own need for stable power supply to ensure more floods of investors coming to the city.
Unranked but pervading as a major story throughout year 2011 is Davao City’s continuing march to progress as Mindanao’s premier city, with projections the city would emerge as among the Top 5 Billionaire Cities in the country in 2011, with its annual revenue hovering near the P5 billion mark. the biggest for a local government unit in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Mayor Inday Sara during signing ceremony with SGV
The fourth top story of the year is an early warning political device that gave hints to the 2013 local elections.
Davao City Mayor Zara Duterte said she is not keen about a reelection in 2013, saying after her first term she and hubby llawyer Manases Carpio are planning to have a baby.
She is also not running for Congress in the First District.
But her brother councilor Paolo Duterte may be facing Congressman Karlo Nograles in the First District congressional race in 2013.
With her premature political retirement, Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte staging a comeback in 2013 to get the mayoral post he held for 18 years.
In the fifth slot is Davao City landing 87th in the list of top 200 fastest-growing cities and urban centers in the world based on a survey by the London-based City Mayors’ Foundation.
Duterte backs city’s biggest investment
Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said groups opposing the AboitizPower
$4 billion coal-fired power plant in Toril has an option to go to court to stop the project.
But Duterte, a supporter of the project he said is needed by the city to assure investors of stable power supply, also said the anti-coal plant oppositors would also have a steep mountain to climb.
There are six coal-fired power plants in the country today, he said.
If they want to stop the AboitizPower plant , they will have first to go to court to shut down the other five, Duterte said.
He said AboitizPower can use the “equal protection clause” of the Constitution to abort any closure moves by the oppositors.
The Davao City Council has overrode a veto by Mayor Sara Duterte on an ordinance reclassifying the coal plant’s 24-hectare plant site in Binugao, Toril into heavy industrial zone.
The ordinance was the last requirement from the city government needed by AboitizPower to proceed with the project, on top of requirements from national government agencies.
In shooting down the ordinance, Mayor Duterte said the plant posed risk to people and environment based on studies.
PEOPLE POWER
Following the council’s override, Mayor Duterte suggested a people power-type referendum initiated by the oppositors could be carried out to stop the project.
While Vice Mayor Duterte said vironmentalists opposing the project have a legal option, he said the override of the veto is the “end of the story.” over opposition to the project.
VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
The vice mayor said that while the mayor is the city’s top official, the city council is vested with legislative power to overturn the veto.
The veto represents the vote of the people. This is democracy, we follow the majority, said the vice mayor who heads the city council. “The city council represents the voice of the people, ” he said.
Vice Mayor Duterte said the city needs the coal plant, foreseeing future power crises and the city’s need for stable power supply to lure investors.
I have to be consistent. It is a matter of principle. I maintain that it is good and it will help Mindanao and we will need it one of these days because of the critical power needs. I will not change my stand, he said.
Erramon I. Aboitiz, chief executive officer of AboitizPower, assured the plant is environment-friendly.
TRACT RECORD
“We have the tract record to show that in carrying out our responsibilities in developing and operating these power plants, we have always adhered to high standards of professionalism and integrity and resolutely advances the well-being of our community and the environment, he said.
Vice Mayor Duterte said proof is yet to be presented that the plant could place the environment and people at risk. He said areas where coal plant operates showed otherwise.
We need to account the number of persons there who are either sick, died of cancer or are sterile attributed to the coal-fired power plant operation. Give us the facts not statements, said Who earlier said his own study showed the plant is safe.
Aboitiz assured the plant would not compromise people and the environment adding that Davao City has a lot to gain from the plant.
Because of the relatively lower cost of generating power from a coal-fired plant, this will provide Davao City with relatively lower generation rates. This should strengthen Davao City’s position as the most competitive city in Mindanao, said Aboitiz.
MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MINDANAOANS FOR PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE!
SAGITTARIUS MINING INC.
Hedcor assisting Davao del Sur abaca farmers
Aboitiz subsidiary Hedcor has trained about 90 farmers in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur on abaca farming through experts from the Fiber Industry Development Authority (Fida).
The training is part of Corporate Social Responsibility 9csr) of Hedcor, builder of two hydropower plants in Sibulan, Sta. Cruz.
The farmers acquired knowledge on the proper cultural management of abaca, updated on the trends in abaca industry and they were trained to develop personal values, interpersonal relationship and commitment to the welfare of community.
During the construction of the 42.5-megawatt Sibulan plants, Hedcor also built a total of 48 kilometers of access road that now doubles as farm-to-market road, including a P2.2 million bridge at Sitio Tudaya.
Even the horse had to suffer walking in our place during the time when Hedcor is not yet here because of the muddy and nasty byway), said a farmer citing benefits brought by Hedcor.
Davao Light and Power Company Christmas Electrical Safety Tips
