By Mortz C. Ortigoza
SUAL – If the huge second coal power plant will start to operate here,
this tiny coastal and mountainous town will be the richest local government
unit (LGU) in the Philippines, according to its mayor.
Mayor Roberto “Bing” Arcinue cited that in case the 1000 megawatt
South Korean’s owned Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) operated
power plant goes into business, this May 18, 1805 founded municipality will be
getting almost P600 million a year of revenues from the energy’s behemoth.
BRASS - Sual Mayor Roberto “Bing”
Arcinue (extreme left) poses with Vietnam Ambassador Ly Quoc
Tuan, Santo Thomas Mayor Dick Villar, and a Vietnamese Military Attachรฉ’. The posterity
pose was taken Wednesday inside the office of the Sual’s mayor as they waited
for the arrival of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to lead the send-off ceremony
of the five Vietnamese sea poachers caught recently. The other two poachers were
shot to death by the members of the Philippine Coast Guard. Photo by Mortz C.
Ortigoza
This notwithstanding, he said, the annual business and real property
taxes and shares from the Special Education Fund of more than P300 million it
gets from the first and Philippines largest 1,218 megawatt coal fired power plant
run by Team Energy, local revenues, and the internal revenue allotment from the
national government.
“Papasok dito including
school board o Special Education Fund almost P600 million si KEPCO because
private. The rate of the Napocor kasi parang government iyan may special law.
Real Property Tax, malaki ito P600 million including the education fund,” he stressed.
With two power plants churning out energy for sale in the Luzon Island,
this town, Arcinue cited, would become the richest LGU in the entire country.
KEPCO is the largest electric utility in South Korea, responsible for
the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity and the
development of electric power projects including those in nuclear power, wind
power, and coal.
The South Korean government controlled corporation operates four power plants in the Philippines that included the Naga
Power Plant Complex, the Cebu Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion Power
Plant, and the 650-megawatt
(MW) Malaya Thermal Power Plant (TPP) in Rizal Province.
Before becoming as mayor here in 2013, Arcinue was a renowned site
developer and a former Officer-In-Charge Mayor in 1986 of capital town Lingayen
in Pangasinan.
The mayor cited that the four richest towns from highest to the lowest
in the Philippines are Cainta, Rizal because of the land fill where Metro
Manila’s cities and towns use and the car manufacturing plants, Limay, Bataan
because of its port and power plant, Mariveles, Bataan home of the Freeport
Area of Bataan, Mariveles geothermal area, 600 megawatt GN Power
Mariveles Coal Plant, and this town because of the Japanese operated 1,218
megawatt coal power plant and the more than 750 state-of- the- art bangus cages
located in Cabalitian Bay in the Lingayen Gulf that make this town the number one
supplier of milkfish in the country.
The mayor is grateful to the national deep water harbor where he built
a P150 million wharf, one of the three phases, he budgeted from the business
and real property taxes the town collected from the business entities here.
In the last two years President Rodrigo Duterte held at the Sual Sea
Warf and Causeway Area the ceremonial sent off of Vietnamese fishermen caught sea
poaching in the provincial water.
Arcinue said that after construction by the KEPCO
of one of the biggest coal power plants in the country, the economic streak of
this town would be unstoppable and mind boggling.
He cited the five goals he has a moist eye to bring
for the phenomenal progress of this 19 villages’ town are power plant, sea
port, ship building, oil depot just like those in Batangas Province, and
tourism hub.
Arcinue disagreed to the pronouncements of critics that the mammoth
first coal power plant did not have trickle effect to the people here.
He said each of the 19 villages here has been given a brand new Toyota
L-300 utility van to help the community, brand new mini-dump truck where six
are already ready for distribution this year, a newly constructed 10 bed rooms
hospital with one doctor and two consultant doctors to boot and three more
surgeons to be hired, free medicines to his constituents, almost all roads in
this town proper and barangays are paved and concretized, 45% of the huge
yearly budget goes to the salaries of this LGU’s workers where a job – order employee
receives P355 a day and the department head gets P70,000 monthly in regular pay
and allowances.
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