It is truly inspiring to see local executives, who go out of their way, to explore ways how to provide lasting help to their communities and their constituents especially the underprivileged people in their areas.
One of them is Mayor Nicon Fameronag, the proactive chief executive of Concepcion town in Romblon. Realizing the vast potential of his town in eco-tourism and commercial fishing, the mayor of the island municipality would like to make a difference to his people and town.
Concepcion is a sixth-class municipality, belonging to Level 5 in income classification and identified as a Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Area or GIDA. The lack of support for infrastructure and other constraints, the socioeconomic growth and development of the island are severely hampered.
Specifically, the absence of an efficient maritime transportation system is a major challenge and poses a disincentive for investments to flow, constraint to passenger mobility, and hampers the delivery of basic services. Further, it slows down the movement of products and commodities as well as poses inconvenience, discomfort, and threats to the safety of local and foreign visitors to the island.
Despite its difficult topography and the rural nature of its economy, Concepcion enjoys comparative advantages over other island municipalities of its class. These comparative advantages — a well-educated population (with a 98 percent literacy rate), zero-crime rate, pristine waters, diving sites for shipwrecks, white sandy beaches, and rich fishing grounds — when fully harnessed and utilized, could catapult the island into becoming a modest, but well-developed, even a competitive, municipality.
Another distinct advantage, Concepcion is the only Romblon town connected to the Western Nautical Highway via Pinamalayan, Oriental. Mindoro.
To be able to maximize these advantages, the municipality, under Mayor Fameronag, seeks to pursue five major developments during the next three to six years. Among them is food security through agro-fishery development, eco-tourism development, and maritime transport development.
The set-up, operation and institutionalization of a commercially-viable and sustainable maritime mass transport system is the key for the municipality to use these advantages for real economic development.
Towards this end, Mayor Fameronag is partnering with the Philippine Association of Coastal and Inland Water Ferries Inc. and collaborating with the IMP Shipyard and Port Services to help establish and operate a steel-hulled cargo/passenger vessel in the municipality of Concepcion.
A project concept is already in the works through the initiative of the mayor. Based on the concept, it would be a local economic enterprise project with a net gain in the short-to-medium term for investors and a long-term social, economic, and political development impact on the local government of Concepcion, its residents, as well as residents nearby small island neighbors, Banton and Corcuera, including the province of Romblon itself and the MIMAROPA region, especially Oriental Mindoro.
Discussions on the project's details are ongoing — the required port infrastructure, the needed licenses and permits, the technical specifications (speed, cargo, and passenger capacity) of the steel-hulled mini RoRo (roll on-roll off) passenger ship; the capitalization and the nature of the ship owner/operator (joint venture, public-private partnership or lease-to-own or charter hire).
This local economic enterprise project is expected to start operating with the help of IMP Shipyard in 2023.
The idea and now the plan, for a steel-hulled mini RoRo passenger vessel operating in the municipality is an unrealized dream for the people of Concepcion since the birth of modern maritime transportation, which means decades ago since the island became a municipality.
Now on the verge of achieving it, the project proponents led by Mayor Fameronag are bullish that the establishment and operation of a steel-hulled maritime cargo cum passenger vessel in Concepcion is the key that will finally unlock the door for the realization of the socio-economic development potential of the island municipality.