Kap competes with province in raising “millions of pesos”

By Mortz C. Ortigoza LINGAYEN –The chief of barangay Estanza competes with the provincial government to get multi-million of pesos financial windfall for his pet projects. Brgy. Captain Mario Navarro said through the help of retired general Orlando Madela, enforcement chief of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, he had been promised a P15 million worth of auditorium and a barangay hall in his village. Navarro said Madela, a close associate of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, explained that the fund would come from the economic fund of President Aquino. He said the funds would be P10 million for the rehabilitation of the auditorium, and P 5 million for the barangay hall. “Both of these projects would be show windows to the world that a village in Pangasinan can be an epitome of progress,” he stressed. He said that village would be the “it thing” in the province as it is primed-up, together with nearby barangays Sabangan, Malimpuec and Capandanan, as a world class eco-tourism haven of Pangasinan Governor Amado T. Espino. In the recent final dialogue with villagers for the P202.2 million golf course project’s application for an environmental compliance certificate (ECC), Provincial Administrator Rafael Baraan said before the end of Espino’s ter, four barangays in Lingayen will become the most progressive places in Pangasinan. Mayor Ernesto Castaneda expressed full support also to the mega project that could spur full-scale development not just of Lingayen but the entire province. Meanwhile, Castaneda said he was going to add funds as his counterpart contribution to the more than P200 thousand seed fund of his school batch for the construction of a comfort rooms in his alma mater Pangasinan National High School. Castaneda is the chairman of high school batches of early 1960s. The mayor said he and his wife Iday distributed recently bags and other school supplies to public school students. The school supplies were bought from his personal funds and monies from the town’s special education funds.