Sual richest town in Ph after 2nd Coal Plant's entry

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 Attaché’. 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.