ILOILO CITY — President Rodrigo R. Duterte is expected to grace the groundbreaking ceremony of Iloilo’s biggest project in history, the PHP11-billion Jalaur River Multipurpose Project (JRMP) in Calinog, Iloilo.
“We will have our ground-breaking ceremony in February for the Jalaur Multipurpose dam that will pave the way in spending more cooperation within Korea and the Philippines,” said Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Han Dong-man, who was in Iloilo on Sunday for the Dinagyang Festival.
He announced that his country has provided USD200 million for the project.
Senator Franklin Drilon, on behalf of the Ilonggos, expressed gratitude to the Korean envoy for Iloilo’s biggest project.
“We have now started the biggest project in the history of Iloilo, and that is the Jalaur Multipurpose Project in Calinog,” Drilon said while gracing the same event.
The project is expected to be completed in September 2022 and it stands to benefit some 25,000 farmer-families in terms of livelihood, and irrigate some 31,000 hectares of rice land in the province.
“That is why we should thank the Korean ambassador,” he said.
Drilon said Iloilo will continue to improve, as he revealed that it was one of his dreams to make this city livable in the future.
He bared that in the next two weeks, Iloilo will open the first economic museum in the country at the newly-restored Elizalde building, also known as the Commission on Audit (COA) building just beside the Iloilo City Hall.
“We will have the only museum in the entire country, which will showcase the economic history of the Philippines, right here in Iloilo City,” he said.
Meanwhile, the envoy said he will recommend to Koreans, especially tourists, to visit Iloilo and its festivals.
He added that this part of the county has much potential to lure more tourists. Some 1,000 Koreans are studying English in Iloilo but he pledged to encourage more students to visit Iloilo to continue with their studies.
