9.5K Sual households’ recipients of pricey relief goods

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

SUAL – 9500 households in this huge coal power plant hosting town are beneficiaries of costly relief goods courtesy of their generous mayor.

Mayor Roberto Arcinue said that unlike other flood victims in other towns and cities in Pangasinan, the people here are pampered with expensive relief goods.

“We give five kilos of rice. They are not the ordinary rice they are of the fancy high variety. Four cans of corned beef, four packs of cup noodles, six packs coffee,” he disclosed recently to this paper.

He told his personnel to give everybody regardless of their political leanings, whether they are not his supporters or whether they are affected by the flood or not.

At the background of Sual, Pangasinan treasurer Prescilla L. Ramos are personnel of the town who are busy repacking the pricey goodies to be given by Mayor Roberto Arcinue to the 9,000 households in the coastal town.

Flood brought by the two typhoons and incessant monsoon rains had flooded the low lying areas here.

Fat dole outs like the relief goods given by Arcinue happened because of the  P100 million yearly business and real property taxes given by the 1,218 megawatts coal power plant operated by the Team Sual Corporation (TSC), the P100 million business tax paid yearly by the San Miguel Corporation as buyer of the power from TSC,  and other businesses like the mammoth milkfish cages.

The benefits reaped by the people here since Arcinue and his son John became a mayor here since years 2013 and 2004, respectively, were the certified, hybrid palay seeds, organic and chemical fertilizers, threshers, and the 18 Kubota four wheeled farm tractors for the farmers in the 19 villages here.

The other projects and services given and to be given by Arcinue to the people here are brand new Toyota L-300 utility van to each of the 19 villages 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.

“I solicited ten hospital beds for our hospital, these beds are expensive,” the mayor stressed.

This town with more than P300 million annual appropriation this year is one of the richest municipalities in the country because of the more than P300 million revenues she gets every year from the annual business and real property taxes and shares from the Special Education Fund, the Philippines largest 1,218 megawatt coal fired power plant run by Team Sual Corporation here, local revenues, and the internal revenue allotment from the national government.

Arcinue said if the second 1,000 megawatt coal power plant runs by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) constructs its plant here, this town will be the richest municipality in the Philippines and more projects will be constructed here.

“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.

The seasoned mayor cited the deep natural water harbor here where he built a P150 million wharf, first 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 founded in 1805 are power plant, sea port, ship building, oil depot just like those in Batangas Province, and tourism hub.