Dagupan City, now

richest LGU in Region 1

NO less than the Commission on Audit (COA) has confirmed that Dagupan City
is now the richest local government unit in Region 1. It is now worth
P2,360,000,000.

This was revealed by Dagupan City Budget Officer Luz de Guzman, who said
that the P2.36 billion financial position of Dagupan was based on its 2017 trial
balance reviewed by the COA.

“This is not fake news. Totoo yong ipinost ng COA sa social media., Ito ang
ipinagmamalaki ng lahat na mga taga-Dagupan—as the richest city in Region
1. Tinalo natin yong lahat ng siyudad hindi lang dito sa Pangasinan kundi sa
buong Region 1,” De Guzman cheerily confirmed to media.

The amount, she said, includes Dagupan’s cash in bank, receivables, pre-
payments, all investments, inventories and other current assets in 2017.

De Guzman credited Dagupan’s increased resources to the fiscal reforms

instituted by Mayor Belen Fernandez since she became chief executive in
2013 and to the efficient collection of revenues.

Of the amount, more than P1 billion were current assets, and the other half in
as non-current assets - lands, land improvement, equipment, building,
vehicles, water crafts and other fixed assets.

She said the P2.36 billion in assets as determined by COA, confirmed that
Dagupan is “number one” in the region.

Trailing Dagupan as the richest city in Region 1 is Batac City with

P1,992,026,000; Urdaneta City is third richest with P1,821,493,000; Alaminos
City is fifth with P1,574,894,000; and San Carlos City, P1,4230,905,000.

De Guzman said since the amount waEDITORIAL

We’d like to believe…

AFTER all the strategizing, trolling on social media, vote-buying, arm-twisting, black
ops by candidates to get elected, it is not farfetched to believe that today’s voters
already fully realize that they hold the future development of their community in
their hands.
We’d like to believe that our millennial voters know enough of past lessons from
their elders to discern who and what’s good for their community.

We’d like to believe that the mold of the old traditional politicians who think that
their responsibility to the community starts and ends with their election, and
believe that their winning had to do with the money paid in return for their votes.

We’d like to believe we’ve seen the end of the era of politicians who smugly react to
voters’ reminders of the elected politicians’ campaign promises with: “Binayaran
naman kita, ano pang hinihingi mo dyan?”

We’d like to believe that our communities have learned their hard lessons from the
impact of the greed of corrupt public officials.

We’d like to believe that voters have matured enough to say: Enough with trapos, we
need leaders with vision and political will.

We’d like to believe that voters have made up their minds to vote for the next
generation’s future by electing competent candidates with known probity,
experience in management of resources and people.

We’d like to believe we are finally on the right track for our communities and our
country.

Naked lust for political power

IT was virtually a fight scene between a dog and a cat when Abby Binay and JunJun
Binay exchanged heated words before a stunned crowd inside a Catholic church in
Makati, the nation’s most progressive city. It was pathetic, to say the least—their
actions directly blaspheming the pious walls of the house of prayer. Mayor Abby and
JunJun, Abby’s younger brother, contesting the mayoral post is sickening enough as
it exposes again the Binay family’s naked lust for political power. Their sister Nancy
is eyeing a return to the Senate on May 13. And their father, Jojo, is running for
congressman after losing badly in the 2016 presidential polls—and after multiple
stints as Makati mayor. Bizarrely, the Binays’ greed for supremacy exists mainly
because the majority of “Makatizens” vote for them without letup. Democracy at its
worst.