Aklan SP Tackles Aklan Rivers Dev't Council Ordinance

By RECTO I. VIDAL

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Aklan is set to consider passage of a provincial ordinance which will institutionalize the Aklan Rivers Development Council to be tasked of rehabilitating, preserving and developing the rivers systems of the province. In close consultation with Vice-Governor Ronquillo C. Tolentino, presiding officer of the Aklan SP, Gov. Carlito S. Marquez, through an urgent request, has decided to forward to the provincial legislative body the draft ordinance "Establishing The Aklan Rivers Development Council, (ARDC) Defining Its Powers and Functions, Appropriating Funds Therefore and For Other Purposes." Actually, the proposed provincial ordinance was the proposed bill of former Aklan Rep. Allen Quimpo filed in 1999 in the lower House of Congress during the 11th Congress. Said legislation was passed by the Lower Chamber but it got stalled in the Senate on third reading when the 11th Congress adjourned and said enactment was relegated to the congressional archives. Marquez and Tolentino, after browsing over the bill are one in believing that it can be adopted as a provincial ordinance, hence, found its way to the session hall of the Aklan SP. In his explanatory note to the bill which was reiterated by the incumbent governor and vice governor, Quimpo then stressed that for "Aklanons, the Aklan Rivers System is not just major tributary but the lifeblood of the province's agriculture and economic growth and the source of irrigation of thousands of hectares of farmlands and water for everyday use and is being used by the residents upriver to go to the market centers." The Aklan Rivers Development Council, as proposed, shall be composed of the Governor himself as chair, the vice-governor as vice-chair with the membership composed of the 17 municipal mayors of the province, the heads of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Aklan (PENRO and CENRO), the provincial director of the Aklan PNP, the district engineer of the Department of Public Works and Highways, the provincial head of the National Irrigation Administration and three non-government organizations representatives with ecology as their principal purpose. By the Aklan Rivers System includes the rivers that run from the upland areas of Libacao and Madalag down to Balete, Altavas, Malinao, Banga, Lezo, Numancia, Batan, News Washington, Makato, Tangalan, Ibajay, Nabas, Buruanga, Malay and Kalibo until the Sibuyan Sea where all tributaries drain. The biggest and the longest in the system is the Aklan River and its tributaries, the Dumalaylay and Timbaban, followed by the Ibajay River in the west. With the creation of the ARDC, is also the setting up of the Aklan Rivers Conservation Secretaries which shall be headed by the Executive Director. The Council shall be tasked among others, to adopt rules, policies, guidelines, recommendations to the concerned agencies on the conservation of the rivers system, formulate a comprehensive, short, medium and long term plans for the development and rehabilitation of the rivers system; conduct survey, incentives, state and status of the system, review all existing ordinances, policies, rules and regulations issued by the local government units concerned related to the development of the Aklan Rivers, as the highest consultative body, and direct the implementation of the projects that maybe approved pursuant to the development plan of the Aklan rivers. /MPhttp://madyaas_pen@yahoo.com