FLORIDABLANCA, Pampanga – “We have to help each other ensure food security. One way is to plant on vacant lots.”
Thus said Gov. Lilia “Baby” Pineda in the dialect as she asked the Philippine Air Force (PAF) base commander here to allow the use of idle lands for plantation of vegetables.
Pineda visited Col. Edwin Manuel Remotique, PAF Wing Commander of Basa Air Base, at his office over the weekend to relay her plan conceptualized with Second District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In an interview, Remotique said “the plan of the governor is feasible here and it’s good.”
He added that “it will make idle lands useful and we have no problem with that.”
Pineda said the use of portions of the 600-hectare PAF base for vegetable plantation would benefit “not just stomachs but the environment.”
Pineda disclosed that an investor had asked her and Arroyo for an area in Pampanga where he can plant malunggay. She added that they want a minimum of 2,000 hectares for the project.
Mayor Eddie Guerrero, who was with the governor at BASA, said the PAF base and Barangay Nabuclod would be an ideal area for the investor wanting to produce malunggay trees, whose leaves contain anti-oxidants.
“The vacant areas in Basa and portions of Nabuclod could answer the need for such big project,” said Guerrero. He added that Nabuclod’s land area is about 9,000 hectares.
Pineda last week visited Nabuclod whose some 1,000 residents are mostly Aetas. She gave vegetable seedlings and fertilizer to the villagers led by Barangay Captain Alfredo Santos.
Perched on a hilly area, Nabuclod was once eyed as sanitary landfill or open dumpsite for towns in province’s second district.
Pineda said she had turned down the plan to turn “such as a very green and beautiful Nabuclod into a garbage dump.”
She added that she would develop Nabuclod into an “eco-tourism area and food security zone.”
Thus said Gov. Lilia “Baby” Pineda in the dialect as she asked the Philippine Air Force (PAF) base commander here to allow the use of idle lands for plantation of vegetables.
Pineda visited Col. Edwin Manuel Remotique, PAF Wing Commander of Basa Air Base, at his office over the weekend to relay her plan conceptualized with Second District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In an interview, Remotique said “the plan of the governor is feasible here and it’s good.”
He added that “it will make idle lands useful and we have no problem with that.”
Pineda said the use of portions of the 600-hectare PAF base for vegetable plantation would benefit “not just stomachs but the environment.”
Pineda disclosed that an investor had asked her and Arroyo for an area in Pampanga where he can plant malunggay. She added that they want a minimum of 2,000 hectares for the project.
Mayor Eddie Guerrero, who was with the governor at BASA, said the PAF base and Barangay Nabuclod would be an ideal area for the investor wanting to produce malunggay trees, whose leaves contain anti-oxidants.
“The vacant areas in Basa and portions of Nabuclod could answer the need for such big project,” said Guerrero. He added that Nabuclod’s land area is about 9,000 hectares.
Pineda last week visited Nabuclod whose some 1,000 residents are mostly Aetas. She gave vegetable seedlings and fertilizer to the villagers led by Barangay Captain Alfredo Santos.
Perched on a hilly area, Nabuclod was once eyed as sanitary landfill or open dumpsite for towns in province’s second district.
Pineda said she had turned down the plan to turn “such as a very green and beautiful Nabuclod into a garbage dump.”
She added that she would develop Nabuclod into an “eco-tourism area and food security zone.”
