Town gets P5.5M for construction of tourist center
CEBU Gov. Hilario Davide III and Alegria Mayor Verna Magallon signed a memorandum of agreement last Friday for the downloading of P5.5 million for the construction of the town’s tourist information center for its canyoneering guests in Sitio Canlaob, Barangay Compostela.
The center will be partly used as a briefing center and radio repeater room. There will be cottages, a restaurant, “something like that for (canyoneering guests),” Magallon told Sun.Star Cebu in a phone interview.
If funds will be downloaded early next year, a bidding will be conducted in the first month and if everything goes smoothly, the construction of the center will take about three months, said Magallon.
She assured that the center may already be able to accommodate the tourists this summer.
It will be a decent place where they could shower, change clothes and eat or stay overnight, Magallon said.
River
She said the briefing center will serve as a venue where the guides could give safe pointers to guests about canyoneering.
The radio repeaters will enable the guides to monitor the guests.
They will be wearing wrist bands that will identify their exact location.
Resolution
Canyoneering is a popular adventure sport, where the guests dive, swim, slide and scale cliffs in Canlaob river starting from Barangay Compostela, Alegria to Barangay Matutinao in Badian town.
Canyoneering is now a major Cebu tourist attraction in the two towns.
Last Dec. 5, the Provincial Board (PB) passed a resolution authorizing Davide to enter into a MOA with Mayor Magallon to download P5,500,000 to the Municipality of Alegria.
The resolution was authored by Board Members Christopher Baricuatro and Jerome Librando (Cebu Province, 7th district).
Fund
The funds, charged against the Province’s local development fund, will be used to build the Alegria Tourist information Center and to improve the canyoneering site in Canlaob, Compostela.
Magallon said this is in line with the Capitol’s thrust to boost the local economy through programs geared toward the devel- opment and growth of the tourism industry.
It is also in line with the mid- west ecotourism program, which includes Alegria and other tourist attractions in the West, and was initiated by the Cebu Investment Promotion Office and the Provincial Tourism Office.
River
Earlier this year, Governor Davide created the Alegria-Badian Tourism Committee, which is headed by the Provincial Tourism Officer, to address the canyoneering disputes among guides and tourism activities in the two towns.
Canyoneering guides of both towns were at odds over the high-yielding river adventure.
In the middle of this year, Davide ordered the temporary closure of the tour package from June 1 to Aug. 31 to address safety issues and regulate canyoneering activities there.
It was reopened last Sept. 1. OCP