By Emma M. Arellano

Bataan (6 Feb.) -- A public hearing on a bill that seeks the establishment of the Balanga City Special Economic Zone and Freeport in Bataan was held last January 24 in the provincial capital.

The consultation/ meeting, spearheaded by Senator Robert Jaworski, chairman of the Senate Economic Affairs Committee, was attended by local businessmen, farmers, fisherfolk, members of civil society and the general public.

The proposed measure, embodied in House Bill 6518 and principally authored by Congressman Enrique T. Garcia (2nd District, Bataan), seeks to take advantage of the economic ingredients favorable to the creation of an ecozone in Balanga.

These economic ingredients, according to Garcia, include a strategic location, fine landscape and educated, skillful and versatile people.

Jaworski, who is also chairman of the Senate Trade and Commerce Committee, has linked hands with Garcia to push through with the proposed project because "it will create more jobs for the people of Balanga and draw more investments to the surrounding provinces".

Garcia filed the bill right after Balanga became a component city of Bataan on December 30, 2000.

If approved, the Balanga City Ecozone will be the third economic zone in the province.

The first export processing zone, now turned into an ecozone, is located in the town of Mariveles with an area of 1,742 hectares. The second is the Hermosa Economic Zone that lies on a 500-hectare flat land in the municipality of Hermosa that would soon be connected by a four-lane road to Subic bay Freeport.

Both Jaworski and Garcia agree on the benefits that Filipinos derive from ecozones.

During the regional financial crisis that hit the country and Asia in 1998, the more than 100 economic zones located in various regions of the Philippines provided the needed protection that helped steer the country's economic wheel to a steady course.

The proposed measure was endorsed by the Bataan Chamber of Commerce and Industry through a resolution passed during the January 21, 2004 meeting of its Board of Directors.

Meanwhile, Balanga City Mayor Albert S. Garcia said that the public hearing held in Balanga will be the last before the bill is finally approved by the Senate.