Former congressman Julio Ledesma IV, who is making a political comeback in the 1st District of Negros Occidental, said he wants to pursue the program appropriation and funding for San Carlos City’s airport, and push for a comprehensive, participative land use program for the Negros Island Region.
San Carlos City has had a phased, sustainable, comprehensive land use plan as a major element of its 20-year master development plan since 2000, he said on Thursday, Sept. 19.
Ledesma, served as representative of the 1st District in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, and 16th congresses spanning 18 years. He is running for his former post in the 2025 elections under the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).
Incumbent Rep. Gerardo Valmayor (NPC) said he is not seeking reelection to give way to Ledesma. The former congressman has been acknowledged as the nominal head of 1st District politics in Negros Occidental.
“I’d like my legacy to be he who was able to have a district united during his stead as its primary steward,” Ledesma said.
“I want to finish the 20th Congress as I did my first tri-term — with distinction as to my duties as a legislator”, he said.
Ledesma served as chairman of four major standing committees in the House of Representatives – Committee on Labor and Committee on Energy in the 11th Congress, Committee of Ways and Means in the 12th and Committee on Science and Technology in the 15th.
He was principal author of numerous laws as congressman, including the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, General Banking Act of 2000, Securities Act 2000, the Financial Provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 and the Automobile Excise Tax overhaul in 2003, Ledesma said.
Among his priorities is to actively participate in the amendments of the EPIRA which the President in his last State of the Nation Address indicated to be of priority concern, Ledesma said.
Having been in the private sector for the last three election cycles has given him a unique perspective as one looking at the institution from the outside, he said.
Ledesma, who is a billionaire, has been Negros Island’s top individual taxpayer since 2015 and consistently ranks within the top 100 taxpayers in the country.
As he will have finished with the consolidation of two-family estates in San Carlos City, he is aiming to have “the most successful agrarian reform roll-out in its current iteration”, Ledesma said.
The beneficiaries will receive substantial equity and all new housing units as the ones given by his father in 1967 and 1969 are now already more than 50 years old, Ledesma said.
The estimated total wealth transfer from their agrarian reform roll-out is approximately P2 billion to their beneficiaries, he said.
Ledesma, who is married to actress Assunta De Rossi, is executive chairman of San Carlos Land Inc, the GHI Estate and the Ledesma Hermanos Hacienda Fortuna Estate.*