Dagupan, Urdaneta LGUs lead Region -1 Cities in Billionaires’ Club

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – Because of the growing number of businessmen and a burgeoning population this local government unit (LGU) and the one in Urdaneta City lead the nine cities’ Region 1 with their more than a billion pesos’ budget for next year.

Mayor Belen T. Fernandez told this paper that a major part of the annual appropriation budget (AAB) in 2019 will go to flood mitigation.

“One billion ten million pesos (P1.10 billion) iyan ang budget natin for 2019 at kasama pa doon ang mga flood mitigation. Napakadami naka budget karamihan sa kalsada,” she stressed.

The Local Government Code of the Philippines mandates that twenty percent of the total AAB goes to development fund.

Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez (L) and Urdaneta Mayor
Mayor Amadeo Gregorio Perez IV.

The fund, that is included in the yearly AAB, is used for infrastructure projects.

This thriving city’s rival Urdaneta on snaring investors will have a budget of a billion pesos next year, according to its administrator Ronald San Juan.

“Higher than that,” he answered if the city, known as distribution hub of live stocks and vegetables, to the query by this paper if it can hit a billion pesos for 2019.

AAB for the next year is usually done and approved by the legislature and the mayor in the last quarter of the preceding year.

Customarily, just like other LGUs the P1.10 billion budget here could balloon to hundreds of millions of pesos more in the middle of the year as the mayor will request the Sanggunian Panlungsod (legislature) for supplemental budget for unforeseen needs when the budget was being deliberated in the preceding year.

De Guzman said that for this year the budget of the eastern Pangasinan city hovers between P900 million to P1 billion.

In 2017, Mayor Amadeo Gregorio Perez IV told this newspaper that it had P780 million AAB.

“You asked Ronald (San Juan) and the budget officer. I am not too sure about the exact figures,” Mayor Perez said.

In 2017 and 2018, Mayor Belen T. Fernandez operated this city with annual appropriation budgets of P858 million, P948-million, respectively.

She said that despite the climate change were five months of rain had poured and flooded the city in three or five days, her administration had kept building flood mitigation projects.

“Wala tayong magagawa kasi ang takbo ng ulan imbes na good for five months tatlong araw, limang araw. Ano ang magagawa natin?” she posed.

Chief Meteorological Officer Jose T. Estrada Jr of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) here said that climate change is the reason for the persistent heavy rains experienced all over the province.

He cited that one month’s volume of rainwater was dumped during the three days of continuous downpour last August which led to the extreme inundation here.

“The intensity of the rainfall during those three days since Saturday is equivalent to one month. Iyong normal rainfall sa isang buwan na 212 millimeters, ay inabot tayo ng 215 mm. Malakas yung naibagsak na ulan sa Pangasinan. Yung sa July naman (Typhoons Inday and Josie), nakaabot tayo ng 1,169mm –  iyong equivalent sa tatlong buwan ay naibagsak sa ilang araw lang” he added.

Together with former congresswoman Gina “Manay” de Venecia and her son incumbent 4^th District Representative Christopher de Venecia, Mayor Fernandez said that they had constructed flood mitigation projects through the budget of the Department of Public Works & Highway and this city.

She cited that she interceded in the past budgets for highway and road elevations, new dikes at the Barangay Pantal areas that stretch from the new bus terminal to the office of the Land Transportation Office, drainage, clearing of the river, third, flood gates, pumping stations, and others.