Naval town gets P59 million funding for port development

By FLOR JACKSON (PIA Biliran)
February 1, 2007

NAVAL, Biliran  –  The municipality of Naval will soon have a modern seaport that would cater to the demands of modern shipping after the office of Congressman Gerardo Espina, Jr. released funds of P59 million for the development of the port of Naval.

This was bared by Congressman  Espina in a cellphone interview who said that part of the entire package to improve the port of Naval is the construction of an air-conditioned passenger terminal that can accommodate some 200 people and a modern warehouse where cargoes are stored before they are loaded by the carrying vessel to other places outside Naval port or in the case of incoming cargoes, before they are claimed by their owners.

He added that the general rehabilitation of the surface of the pier and the portion down under to include scouring of the seabed so that the area within the seaport gets deeper enough to allow big vessels to dock even during low tides.

Furthermore, he said that the ramp of the pier will also be developed into a roll-on-roll-off (RORO) port to allow RORO vessels to dock, thus making the loading and unloading of cargoes easier.

The project, Congressman Espina said, will not only improve the physical appearance of the seaport of Naval but it also offers job opportunities for the Biliranons saying that he will make a special request to the winning bidder who will work on the development of the port to get workers from Naval town and in other parts of Biliran province especially those skilled workers in this nature of work who have no jobs at present.

The bidding of the project will be done on February 7 this year and hopefully, he said, the work will commence early March this year.

With the much improved seaport of Naval, the capital town of the province of Biliran, commerce and trade in the province will even be more brisk, he said.

The port development project of Naval town is in line with the priority infrastructure projects of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Biliran province being part of the Visayas super region on tourism.

Meanwhile, Congressman Gerardo Espina, Jr. informed that additional funding of P8 million was released from his office for the completion of the construction of the Naval Gymnasium located along P. Inocentes Sreet in Naval, Biliran.  The work, he said, will start next week.