By Richmond Mercurio (The Philippine
Star) | Updated June 21, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - State-owned Bases
Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) is set to accelerate economic
development in the countryside by turning idle military camps into
agri-industrial parks.
BCDA has so far identified five
underutilized Armed Forces camps that cover some 76,811 hectares of land in
total.
“Using BCDA as a catalyst for economic
development, we are also exploring the opportunity of developing other military
camps across the country to provide millions of jobs. And we’re looking at the
possibility of transforming idle camps to agri-industrial centers to ensure
food security and also connect our farmers to the international market. These
are camps in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao,” BCDA president and chief executive
officer Arnel Paciano Casanova said.
“Our vision here is to create economic
growth in different regions using our infrastructure, our land, and our
capacity to develop the land. So this is not the usual development, this will
be more of an agri-industrial development. It will also create investments in
agriculture, technology and research,” he added.
The five idle AFP camps identified by
BCDA for possible joint development include the 34,422-hectare Fort Ramon
Magsaysay military reservation in Nueva Ecija, the 42,264-hectare Camp
Kibaritan military reservation in Bukidnon, a 64.90-hectare property in Mactan,
Cebu, and two lots in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig with sizes of 29.71 hectares and
29.53 hectares, respectively.
Of these five idle camps, Casanova said,
BCDA is initially looking at three outside Metro Manila for potential immediate
development.
“These are very, very huge chunks of
land which are currently underutilized which we believe could be catalysts of
growth in the regions where they are located,” he said.
“Camp Kibaritan in Bukidnon, for
example, is a very productive land in Mindanao and we could create the Mindanao
economy to the value chain. Without having to sell it, we could actually
generate and make it more productive and create thousands of jobs to people
living there, even the Lumads or even the local community,” Casanova added.
According to Casanova, development of
more agri-industrial parks would provide a boost to the country’s volatile
agriculture sector.
“What we need to do for our agriculture
is to provide investments and technology so that the yield of our farmers will
be better and the quality of the products produced would be globally
competitive in terms of quality and freshness,” he said.
BCDA, in a briefing last week, said it
plans to dispose the 25.8-hectare Navy Village along Lawton Avenue in Fort
Bonifacio this year, subject to the approval of the next administration.
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