SMC's Boss Promises Gov. Guico More Projects

BECAUSE HE IS PRO-PEOPLE

BY MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

 LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – After signing the mammoth P34 billion expressway project in Pangasinan, the President and Chief Executive Officer of San Miguel Corporation lauded the pro-people policy of the governor and assured him of more projects.

“Itong following joint venture ng gagawin natin dahil sa galing mo at nakita ko pro-people ka gagawa pa tayo ng maraming projects,” Ang declared to Governor Ramon V. Guico, III during the Joint Venture and Toll Concession Agreements as the crowd applauded him in the classy Sison Auditorium at the capitol here.

Photo credit: Pangasinan Public Information Office

 Guico told the multitude - mostly clad on corporate attire as dressed code of the occasion - that the P34 billion 44 kilometers expressway from Binalonan, Manaoag, Calasiao to Lingayen has been a dream of his predecessors in the last 30 years.

“Gov. Monmon this expressway has been ambitioned by several governors for some 20, 25, 30 years but during your term nagawa ninyo po. This is a great accomplishment not only of Governor Monmon Guico but of all of us the people of Pangasinan,” the governor narrated what a department head of the provincial government told him.

The Phase-2 of the four lanes super highway will snake from the 30.98 kilometers stretches in Lingayen to Alaminos City.

National and public officials who witnessed the signing of the Agreements have been Congressmen Art Celeste (1^st District, Pangasinan), Christopher de Venecia (4^th District, Pangasinan), Ramon “Monching” Guico, Jr. (5^th District, Pangasinan) Abono Partylist Rep. Robert Raymund M. Estrella, Police Region-1 Director Brig. Gen. John Chua, Pangasinan Provincial Director Col. Jeff Fanged and brass of the provincial government

Ang told the invited guests in the Auditorium that his colleagues at the main office of the multinational conglomerate in Mandaluyong City vacillated on the viability of the Pangasinan Link Expressway (PLEx) because of the less number of vehicles that would patronize the SMC’s tollways' business.

“Iyang traffic hindi masyadong mataas. Sabi ko wag problemahin iyong viability o iyong traffic. We built it and they will come and used it!” the CEO optimistically told the crowd who emphatically applauded on his pronouncement to continue the project for the benefits of the people of Pangasinan.

Ang cited that Pangasinan is one of the progressive provinces in the entirety of the Luzon Island.

In terms of population, Pangasinan is the No. 5 most populated province in the country with her 3,163,190 populations (2020 Census).

 The behemoth multionational conglomerate's SMC is the Top 43^rd Forbes' Best Employers on its 2023 list among 700 corporations like Samsung, Apple, Ferrari to name a few.

Presently, the flagship projects of the first term’s governor are the the ladderized system’s Pangasinan Polytechnic College, the takeover of the second largest salt farm in western part of the province to establish the Pangasinan Salt Center, scholarship for hundreds of college students, reinvigoration of the tourism industry through See Pangasinan Listening Tours, houses for Pangasinenses to be led by the Provincial Housing and Urban Development Authority, Corporate farming program to enhance Pangasinan’s food production and transform farming into a profitable economic enterprise, to name a few.