Urdaneta leads cities in R-1 with P771M budget

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

URDANETA CITY - This thriving wholesale cattle and vegetable business hub in Northern Luzon leads the cities in Region 1 with the highest annual budget for this year.

The new and swanky Urdaneta City Hall

City Administrator Ronald San Juan said that for this year, this city has P771 million annual appropriation budgets.
Neighbouring Dagupan City, where some anti-progress legislatures there tried but failed to stall the 2016 budget, has P768 million budgets only.
Laoag City last year had a proposed total budget of ₱ 632,565,171 for 2016.
“We are less dependent on the internal revenue allotment since we collect more on the local taxes.“It is like 60-40 percentage equation,” San Juan cite.
 Mayor Amadeo G.E Perez IV explained that this city has higher revenue than other cities in Region 1 because of the bigger sizes of its population and its land area.
The Local Government Code said that province, city, and municipality have each shares of 50% on population, 25% on land area, and 25% equal sharing on the internal revenue allotment from their shares on the collection of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Ms Saniata A. Elegores, this city’s treasurer, cited that this year this city pays Land Bank of the Philippines P30, 207, 232 and P23, 800,028 for the principal and interest of the hundreds of millions of pesos loans on the sanitary landfill and the new public market.
Meanwhile, Mayor Belen Fernandez lamented that the obsolete Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) approved by the local government of Dagupan City in 1978 faces rough sailing among many councillors who are to approve it and the critics who sow misinformation on its viability. Those who opposed it argued that with the growth areas and the new city hall constructed because of the CLUP, the city will be more vulnerable to flood.
“Ang CLUP natin ay 1978 pa, di ba nakakahiya iyon? Ang Calasiao nag upgrade na, ang Urdaneta City nag upgrade na, ang La Union nag upgrade na. Naiwan na ang Dagupan City. Noong kauupo kung mayor, ang Dagupan City ay No. 78 in terms of competitiveness. No.78, di ba nakakahiya?”


She said with CLUP, the city could be competitive with the mentioned local government units.