The move to convert the Central Visayas State College of Agriculture, Forestry and Technology (CVSCAFT) into a state university has encountered a snag due to the section on the transfer of the main campus from Bilar town to Tagbilaran. Resolution no. 073 of the Bilar municipal council requested Sen. Manuel Roxas III to retain the CVSCAFT main campus in the town whether the school is converted to a state university of not. It was passed unanimously last July 3. Sponsored by Councilor Henry Vidal, the resolution said the then Bohol Agricultural College (BAC) was elevated as the CVSCAFT main campus in 1998 by virtue of Republic Act 8569. Vidal noted that the school is strategically located and has an area of 89.53 hectares, a part of which is titled to BAC and a forest reserve and forest academic research area of 3,020 hectares suitable for all forms of expansion.

The resolution added that the Bilar campus is the only main campus of a state college offering Agriculture and Forestry courses in Region 7 and is the center of national researches in coconut, vermin-culture and jatropha. It pointed out that the Tagbilaran campus is merely offering technology courses offered by other established schools in the city and the region. The resolution also stressed that there was no consultation done in the transfer of the main campus to Tagbilaran with its conversion into a state university. In response, the Bohol provincial board (PB) passed Resolution No. 2009-447 strongly supporting the Bilar council resolution. The resolution, sponsored by Board Member Corazon Galbreath, said the PB is not opposed to the proposal to turn the CVSCAFT into a state university but is “strongly opposed to the manner by which it is being facilitated”.

A former Bilar mayor, Galbreath said she found it “appalling” that under the proposed bill, the main campus of the new state university shall be transferred to Tagbilaran despite the objection of the municipality of Bilar. Mayor Fanuel Cadeliña said the town has “all the reasons to claim the retention of the main campus of the CVSCAFT in Bilar. In his letter to Vice Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera, Roxas revealed that House Bill No. 5638 entitled “An Act Converting the (CVSACFT), its units and satellite campuses in the City of Tagbilaran and in the municipalities of Bilar, Candijay, Clarin, Calape and Balilihan, all located in the Province to be Known as the Bohol Island State University (Bisu) and Appropriating Funds Therefore” was passed by the Senate on third and final reading last Aug. 18. HB 5638 was filed in the Senate last Feb. 16 with Bohol solons Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Adam Relson Jala and Representatives Cynthia Villar and Junie Cua as authors.