OVERVIEW
Since July 1968 that this municipality had gained independence from Pototan, this town is characterized by precedent growth, rapid development and more conscientious and empowered community. These are the results of a Local Government Unit that have relentlessly pursued its Vision and Mission of a holistic development for the common good of its constituencies.
Mina a fifth class municipality in the 3rd District, Province of Iloilo is located 37 kilometers north of Iloilo City passing through the National Highway via the Municipality of Pototan. It is about an hour travel away from Iloilo City using a public utility vehicle. The Municipality is bounded by five (5) municipalities-Pototan in the east, Janiuay in the west, Badiangan in the north, New Lucena in the south and Cabatuan in the northwest.
Mina is composed of 22 barangays with a population of 18,906 covering 3,426 households with a household size of 5.6. Rice farming is the major source of income with 56.03% of the total population is in labor force with an employment rate of 81.70%.
Thru the efforts of the local administration, the continued development in all the 22 barangays of this municipality, infrastructure development, peace and order, personnel management and strengthening of capabilities and united efforts from Non-Government Organizations and all sectors never ceases to flow. Moreover, along with the development of this 5th class municipality is the increasing demands in the delivery of basic services to the people in which the Local Government Unit has to contend.
The Local Government Unit of Mina is persuasive on its earnest advocacy to sustain and improve the welfare of its people, thus; a need to generate funds from its own initiative was considered. All opportunities that the LGU can offer were revisited to come up with strategies on how to utilized them into a revenue-generating sources. Among the strategy identified is the potential of the locality to be an investment hub in the central part of Iloilo Province and has the capability to grow economically in terms of advance technology.
Although, Mina is an agricultural community, yet there are those areas not viable anymore for agricultural production and there are available land areas that remained idle for many years but are feasible for agro-industrial and economic purposes. With this premise, the LGU was able to identify and include in its Comprehensive Land Use Plan vast areas of land for its economic and agro-industrial zones which are open to all investors.
Other considerations for the investors to choose Mina as site of their investment opportunities are: primarily its location and accessibility through national roads and highways to all directions and has proximity to Iloilo Airport of International Standard and Iloilo Port; it is also accessible to other major facilities such as: communications, transportation and power; and it is not a flood-prone area because the slope rangers from 6-18%.
The municipality can provide investors with enough manpower and well-trained skilled workers from its LGU-run Mina Skills Training Center to the investors. More importantly, the investors are assured of a peaceful and politically-stable community with well-educated and God-loving people.
In the advent of new information and communication technology, there is definitely a need to empower Minanhons to be globally competitive through computer and digital literacy and opening opportunities to the world for them through information route and honing their skills with the new technologies through the world-wide-web. With this direction that Mina is geared into, the establishment of the Community eCenter (CeC) in this locality is an opportune time to embrace bringing forth new development on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) towards the efficient delivery of government services to the community and as a facility for the transformation of this municipality into e-knowledge-based developed community.
The reason why the Local Government Unit of Mina has achieved so much for its people is because of the deep commitment of the local administration to the realization of the mission and vision for its people. The attainment for the challenge does not end with getting some results, but in more ways than one, become rather an opportunity in creating new ones.
The success for this fifth class municipality were starting to gracefully emerged and the development is being enjoyed by the present generation and which will eventually flourish beyond what it is today.