Davao City – President Arroyo said she is merely waiting to sign the bill creating the Mindanao Economic Development Authority (MEDA), a corporate body that would oversee the development of the country’s second largest island.

“I’m waiting for it. If it was given to me tonight I would have signed it,” she told reporters in a Presidential dinner held at the Waterfront Hotel here.

Ricardo Saludo, deputy presidential secretary, said the bill “seems to be the kind of law she would wish to support.”

“All throughout her administration, she has been pushing economic development in Mindanao,” Saludo told reporters in a press conference at SM City Davao.

Recently, the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed the bills that would foster continuity and consistency of interregional and Mindanao- wide programs.

The Senate’s MEDA bill is also known as the MinDA (Mindanao Development Authority) bill in the lower house.

Meanwhile, Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo) chair Undersecretary Virgilio Leyeretana said the bill is Ms. Arroyo’s strategic legacy to make sure her advocacies are continued even in the next administration.

“If it weren’t for this bill, which she herself wrote in 1992 when she was still a senator, we would go back to zero since the next administration might support MEDCo,” Leyretana told the Manila Bulletin.

Once the law takes effect, MEDA will replace the MEDCo and will be attached to the Office of the President.

It would cover all regions in Mindanao, including the island of Palawan – in so far as its involvement in the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East ASEAN Growth Area is concerned.