The Department of Tourism (DOT) formally turned over a P2-million tourism information center to the Municipality of Brooke’s Point on Monday, March 18, during the opening of the town’s weeklong 14th Pista Y Ang Kaniyog’n.
In the inauguration ceremony, DOT MIMAROPA Regional Director Danilo Intong finally transferred the building’s ownership to the local government unit through Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano.
“We’ve been using this information center since 2017. But it’s only now that it’s officially turned over to us. We’re honored to have the regional tourism director gracing the building’s inauguration,” Feliciano said.
The tourism information center, funded by the DOT-attached agency Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), was completed in 2016. This building is located along the national highway just beside the People’s Park in Barangay Pangobilian. Brooke’s Point’s tourism information building is just one of the many visitors’ centers that the TIEZA constructed in the past few years in southern Palawan towns, including Narra, Bataraza, Quezon and Rizal.
“We’ve focused first in southern Palawan where we’re going to have more programs in place, especially in relation to our [sea] connectivity to Malaysia via Kudat. Through that route we’re going to receive probably tourists coming from Brunei or Indonesia,” Intong said.
The regional director also shared the plan to connect Malaysia’s Kota Kinabalu to southern Palawan via Skyjet airline. “Hopefully, we would be able to have the airport project here in Brooke’s Point whose area I’ve already inspected in 2017. And we are pushing for that,” he added.
Feliciano, meanwhile, urged her fellow southern Palawan municipal chiefs to develop tour packages that include all the destinations from Narra to Balabac. Southern Palawan prides itself for its stunning falls, farms, forests and caves, as well as powder-soft white beaches particularly in the southernmost part.
“Our tourists have already been to northern Palawan…Now, with the help of Regional Director Intong, it’s our chance to entice them to stay for another week to explore southern Palawan,” she said.
The mayor added that Brooke’s Point is now focusing on the continuous development of tourist sites and capacity building of tourism frontliners, as part of her administration’s agriculture and tourism thrusts.