PILAR, Bataan – Mayor Alice D. Pizarro has revealed the plan of a Metro Manila-based businessman to build a leisure-type hotel worth P 350 million in a 3.5-hectare site at Mt. Samat National Shrine in the upland village of Liyang, this town.

Mayor Pizarro explained the construction of a multi-million peso hotel would give impetus to the grand design of making Mt. Samat to be the premier tourist destination for culturally-rich, patriotic and nationalistic approaches to the development of internationally known World War II battle-site in Asia.

Ms. Pizarro, a University of the Philippines  tourism graduate, welcomed  the construction of a multi-million peso worth  ultra-modern hotel in this town which  is reasonably an excellent venue  for American, Japanese and other  Asian  visitors to appreciate the  historical values of the site  which  would certainly be a big boost to the municipal government‘s objective of becoming the historical-cultural tourism center of Luzon by year 2020.

The establishment of Mt. Samat  Shrine  Tourism Enterprise Zone  as a  flagship program of Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), the second after Luneta Park in Manila intends to create a truly Filipino ingenuity with globally –unique war memorial facilities to encourage more local and foreign visitors, historians, relatives of veterans to visit the historic peninsula.

Bataan Tourism Council Foundation chair by Mrs. Vicky S. Garcia is optimistic about the long-range systematic development of Mt. Samat to become a leisure tourism complex with audio-visual facilities, war relics museum and other vital heritage portraying the heroism of Filipino-American soldiers who stood valiantly defending the sacred ground of Bataan peninsula as the last bastion of democracy in the South East Asia.

The improvement of facilities at the shrine would create more jobs to the residents, expansion of small and medium enterprises, souvenir shops, restaurants and other health services shops which definitely bring new eco-tourism dimension toward a progressive community.