Representative Says Camarines Sur Reapportioning Bill Hurts Camarines Norte

DAET, Camarines Norte-Representative Liwayway Vinzons-Chato of the lone district of Camarines Norte said Saturday that the House bill proposing to reapportion her province into two districts was "being held hostage" by the House bill that also seeks to reapportion Camarines Sur into five districts.

"The bill already has been passed in the committee level. But its passage in the plenary level is put at risk by the opposition of a similar bill seeking to reapportion Camarines Sur," said Vinzons-Chato.

She said Senator Joker Arroyo already had indicated that the move to divide the northernmost Bikol province into new districts would be in vain if the similar move seeking to create a new district in Camarines Sur were dumped.

"One of the reasons why the bill proposing to reapportion Camarines Sur faces hurdles is the opposition of Governor LRay Villafuerte."

She said opposition to the bill seeking to reapportion Camarines Sur was also hurting all other similar bills filed in the lower House, including the proposed reapportioning of Cavite province.

She could see no other hindrance to the division of Camarines Norte into new districts. "Even my political opponents favor the move."

She said her province, which has a population of 513, 000 according to 2007 census, was ripe for reapportioning.

The bill seeking to divide Camarines Norte into new districts would separate Tagalog-speaking towns from Bikol-speaking towns.

She said each of the proposed district would have at least 250, 000 population.

The Tagalong-speaking towns-Sta. Elena, Capalonga, Paracale,Jose Panganiban, Vinzons, and Labo, the largest town-are mostly the northern towns adjacent to Quezon province .

The Bikol-speaking towns-Talisay, San Lorenzo Ruiz, Mercedes, San Vicente, Basud, and Daet-are those adjacent to Camarines Sur.

"But I believe this would not be a form of segregation since we all identify ourselves as Bikolanos," said Labo Vice Mayor Dindo Villafuerte Pardo, who strongly favors the proposal.

"I disagree with those who say that the reapportioning was basically the separation of Tagalog-speaking towns from Bikol-speaking towns."

He said the reapportioning of his province would be beneficial for his town because it would create another engineering district. "This in turn would mean more infrastructure projects."

Vinzons-Chato said classifying the towns according to language was just for "identification." She said segregation was not intended.

"No town in the province is exclusively speaking either of the two languages spoken in the province. Vinzons town, for instance, has a large percentage of Bicol-speakers although it is classified as a Tagalong-speaking town."

Daet Mayor Tito Sarion said the reapportioning of his province would be "all for the good."

"The allocation of funds will be doubled. Everything including opportunities would be doubled. It would also be very beneficial to Daet in the sense that the attention of the sitting representative will be focused to Daet."

Sarion agreed that the proposed reapportioning would not be a form of segregation. "After all we have not been divided by language difference ever since."

He said the reapportioning would spur economic growth in the poor province which had experienced economic slowdown with the completion of Andaya Highway that diverts Bicol-Manila traffic away from the province.

Vinzons-Chato said that the reapportioning of her province was much needed now because they needed more funds to sustain collective developmental efforts of officials in the province, which she said was being hampered by shortage of funds.

She said every district was given P70 million. "So if our province would be composed of two districts, we would have about P140 million."

"I am appealing to the plenary to pass the bill seeking to reapportion Camarines Norte even as the similar bill seeking to reapportion Camarines Sur is being opposed."