Profile bares Macanlalay’s political pedigree

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

CALASIAO – The political pedigree of the young mayor here not only comes from his being a two-term mayor but during his stints as class officers in secondary and tertiary education and his membership in the town council.

According to the biography of Mayor Mark Roy Macanlalay with his father Roy – then the mayor of Calasiao - blessings, he ran and won as a town councilor in 2007 and help skippered the town to its burgeoning status. He was elected as Board of Director from the 3rd Congressional District for the National Movement of Young Legislators.

“In 2010, as his father was ending his last three terms as hizzoner, Macanlaly and his father buckled up, ran, and both won with a resounding results the mayoralty and vice mayoralty races of the town after the people here clamored for continuity of progress bought by their collaboration.

 He was only 28 when he won that poll making him the youngest chief executive of the town’s history, if not the whole 48 towns and cities Pangasinan, to win a mayoral contest,” the profile reads at this town’s website.

No stranger to charity work in 2009, the young mayor spearheaded a massive relief mission after his constituents reeled in one of the most devastating cyclones Pepeng that submerged many villages injured some limbs, snapped out some lives, and destroyed properties. He repacked and distributed goods to the less fortunate to soothe their misery.

But his chutzpah as the chief executive of this first class burgeoning town was snaring big businesses that are part of the country’s Top 100 Corporations.

As big business  and political vested interests in neighboring Dagupan City debates and undermine each other in 2010 whether to give franchise to mammoth retail store SM of the SM Prime Holdings, Inc., the mayor silently worked with the Gokongweis to usher its swanky and sprawling Robinsons Mall here as alternative shopping and grocery center for Pangasinense.
Other business behemoths that put shops in the municipality are Nissan, Susuki, Laus Group of Companies, KIA. Haima, SEA Oil, Caltex,Jollibee, Honda, Toyota,  Amianan Motors, and others
"Pangasinenses who did not pass Calasiao for the last three years would be mesmerized how Calasiao under the stewardship of Mark Roy trail blazed most towns and other cities in Pangasinan in terms of progress and urban development," the biography narrated.
It said that if the mayor at his young age can chalk up these feats,  "what more can an already experienced and newly minted Mark Roy does to resources rich provincial capitol for the good of the whole province if the people who thirst for development catapult him there to its No. 2 post?"