PEZA to tap BuCor land for ecozones

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) and Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) signed an agreement on Tuesday allowing the investment promotion agency to establish economic zones on idle lands spanning thousands of hectares owned by the latter.

“Even while we are still at this stage of signing the MOU (memorandum of understanding), we have already actually received some serious interest from big-ticket investors,” Peza Director General Tereso Panga said in his speech during the signing held at the Peza office in Pasay City.

For his part, BuCor Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. said that initially, Peza would be allowed to use around 25,000 hectares (ha) of the bureau’s 28,000-ha Iwahig property in Palawan province, the site of one of its prisons and penal farms.

“We can use this property to help the government for food security and climate change adaptation and also make Peza a more viable institution because they can use our lands for their export processing zones as well,” Catapang told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

Mindoro site

Aside from the BuCor’s idle lands in Palawan, he said another 7,000 ha in Sablayan, Mindoro Occidental, the site of another penal colony, could also be tapped by Peza.

Catapang added that aside from the bureau’s land resources, they were also open to allowing prisoners in the Iwahig prison and penal farm to be tapped by industries operating in the proposed economic hub.

According to him, there are around 3,000 prisoners at Iwahig, some living with their respective families.

Late last month, Panga said they were targeting opening a 26,000-ha mega-economic zone at Iwahig within the next five years.

He added that the planned Palawan mega economic zone would be ideal for manufacturing facilities for automotive vehicles, particularly electric ones.

It will be the fifth to be owned by the government, adding to the existing ones in Cebu, Baguio, Cavite, and Pampanga.