Senator Imee Marcos said her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will be signing the Negros Island Region Act into law within a few days.
Things will only get better for Negros because the NIR will bring services closer to Negrenses, the senator said in her speech at the opening of the Panaad sa Negros Festival at the Panaad Sports Stadium in Bacolod City on Monday, April 15.
The president during his visit to Bacolod on March 8 also confirmed that he is signing the bill creating the NIR, which will be composed of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Siquijor, into law
Negros Occidental is currently part of Western Visayas and Negros Oriental and Siquijor are part of Central Visayas.
The Diocese of Dumaguete has asked the president to veto the NIR Act.
Senator Marcos, at a press conference at the Panaad, said the objections of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental to the NIR are long standing.
“They’ve asserted time and again that both their economy and culture, social fabric, are more affiliated with that of the Cebu side rather than Bacolod, and yet I think those qualms, doubts, assertions have really been laid to rest, I believe this (the NIR) will proceed as planned,” she said.
Those issues have long been debated and many of those concerns have been put to rest, the senator added.
Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said the opposition of the Diocese of Dumaguete to the NIR is welcome as at least there is another side.
“So when the president decides he has all information already available in his hands then he’ll make that decision and I trust that it will still be favorable in spite of the opposition”, Lacson said.
“That opposition is the same as before that Negros Oriental will be inferior to Negros Occidental under the NIR. That is not true, we will respect what they need and they will respect what we need,” Lacson said.*