Liloan, Minglanilla qualify for cityhood

CEBU, Philippines —  The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Region 7 has highlighted two municipalities in the Province of Cebu as having a high chance for cityhood following its recent report of the two areas hitting a 150,000 plus population growth during the Regional Dissemination Forum on the Results of the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) yesterday.

Minglanilla with a total population of 151,002 and Liloan who now reached its mark of 153,197 population both classified most densely populated numbers of settlers are qualified on the listing this year, based on the municipalities’ income and assets.

Section 450 of Republic Act 7160 also known as the “Local Government Code of 1991” provides for the requisites for the creation of municipalities or clusters of barangays into a component city.

A municipality can be a city if it has either of the following: a continued boost of the territory of at least 100 square kilometers as certified by the Land Management Bureau or a population of not less than 150,000 inhabitants as certified by the PSA.

“If it has a locally added generated average annual income as certified by the Department of Finance of at least P100,000,000 pesos for the last two consecutive years based on the 2000 constant prices, Minglanilla and Liloan are in the list,” said Engr. Ariel E. Florendo, regional director of the PSA-7.

On the other hand, Central Visayas is the fourth largest region of the country’s total population growth rate with 8.08 million people or 7.41% of the total population; it has an average PGR of 1.88 percent or 685, 000 the highest ever recorded in PSA; it has added a total of one million persons every decade since 2010.

On the PSA’s report on its total population in the region, the Cebu Province tallied being number one, followed by Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu, and Mandaue.

The City of Lapu-Lapu as one of the highly urbanized cities, (HUCs) is the fastest growing city in 2020 with an average annual PGR of 4.26% of 497, 604, its total population.

“I would like to surmise, the reason why people would flock to a certain area is actually employment opportunities and due to economic reasons. Export processing zone and numbers of companies are hiring a lot of workers like MEPZA; that probably would be the reasons the high rate of population,” said Engr. Leopoldo P. Alfanta, Jr., chief Statistical Specialist of Statistical Operations and Coordination Division of PSA-7.

Meanwhile, Central Visayas has a total land area of approximately 15, 872.8 kilometers and a population density of 509 persons per square kilometer. This represents an increase of 43 persons as reported last year in 2019.

Among the ten most densely populated cities or municipalities in Central Visayas, the majority are in Cebu namely: Talisay City, Cordova, Liloan, Minglanilla, Madridejos, Danao City, Naga City, and Santa Fe.

As of May 01, 2020, the total population of Central Visayas is 8,081, 988 which according to the PSA it is expected to balloon by the end of 2021. — Jomelou Q. Menorias, CNU Comm Intern, GMR (FREEMAN)