By Ercel Maandig
Cagayan de Oro City – Misamis Oriental 2nd District Representative Yevgeny “Bambi” Emano lobbied in the congress the formulation of Route 955 or the Claveria to Gingoog City road as tourism center of the province and institutionalize the area as tourism hub.
“In that way, TIEZA will identify plans and programs for additional infrastructure development of the area as an eco-tourism zone,” said Emano during the State of the Municipal address of Mayor Jay Bago of the town of Opol.
Emano said that aside from his congressional fund and the Provincial funds from the governor, there’s also TIEZA to look into the area plus the promotion from the Department of Tourism (DoT).
Route 955 is now famous specially to domestic tourists and it really needs development, most especially on different tourism related activities, wherein private investors are now sprouting in the area.
At first, the national government through the Department of Public Works and Highways(DPWH) constructed a wide road network for the purpose of shortening traveling time from this City to Gingoog City.
Traveling time from here via Claveria town to Gingoog City will save you almost 2 hours compared to the original route before.
The road network entices investors to put up tourism related businesses such as coffee shops, restaurants, adventure activities,hotels, resorts and farm tourism because of the amazing beauty of mountain ridges from Claveria to Gingoog and the cold weather condition is an added attraction.
On the other hand, Emano announced other road openings of the same purpose to save travel time in the western part of the province from Canitoan village here to Opol town to Lugait bypass road, and this project will cost an estimated P3-Billion from DPWH. The good news is, it is set to open next year.
With this development, Emano said that it’s high time for Laguindingan airport be upgraded into an international standard and the National government will partner with the Aboitiz group for the upgrade and development under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract, this he learned when the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) sent him a letter last week, informing him of the airport’s proposed upgrade. ###
