Verón-Punta Cana municipalization faces legislative debate

A legislative debate has emerged regarding the administrative reorganization of the Verón-Punta Cana region in the Dominican Republic. Senator Rafael Barón Duluc (Cholitín) has expressed support for creating new municipal districts, such as Punta Cana and La Ceiba del Salado, but argues this should only occur after the current initiative to elevate Verón-Punta Cana to a municipality is completed.

Senator Barón Duluc warned that incorporating these new divisions into the existing proposal would require additional technical studies, territorial delimitations, and consensus-building, which could delay or jeopardize the legislative progress made over the last two years. He suggested these districts be addressed as independent initiatives once the primary municipalization is achieved.

Punta Cana Mayor Ramón Antonio Ramírez (Manolito) also voiced opposition to the new proposal submitted by Deputy Francisco Villegas. The Mayor argued that modifying the current project could cause unnecessary delays and claimed that a significant majority of the local population would not support the new territorial arrangement, though he did not provide specific survey data to support this claim.