LINGAYEN–Great strides have been made in only 365 days to make Pangasinan truly a premier province where investments can be profitable, and a better quality of life can be enjoyed.

This was gleaned from the report delivered by Governor Amado Espino Jr. to his constituents in his state of the province address last week.

Fired by his vision “to make Pangasinan as the best place to invest, work, live and raise a family,” Espino said he began the task of transforming Pangasinan into a premier province anyone will be proud of starting from day one of his administration.

In his inaugural address, he promised “to put the house in order to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of services by a motivated corps of public servants.”

He cited the fresh image of the Capitol building where delivery of services emanates and the new pride that government employees take in their new offices.

Being the seat of governance in the province, the capitol is where all the elected provincial officials, starting from the governor, are holding office.

Describing the provincial capitol as “the microcosm of our beloved Pangasinan”, Espino put order in the once messy capitol complex in order by clustering offices with inter-related functions in specified areas in government buildings.

“We want harmony in the work places, and now we are proud to convey to our constituents, that all elective provincial officials for the first time are working under one roof,” he said in his State of the Province Address last Monday.

Espino said the new capitol building is the fulfillment of a promise he made before the provincial board where he vowed to make the provincial capitol as the best capitol building in the country.

Also renovated were the Finance Building, the Environment and Natural Resources Office Building and the Kalantiao Building. Still undergoing renovation are the Library Building, Civil Service Building and the Malong Building.

First 365-days accomplishments

Espino said the transformation of the physical infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with the transformation of the human infrastructure of the provincial government.

He emphasized that the provincial employees are duty-bound to be the best employees in the province and set in place a work ethic code for them.

To further their efficiency, the province will provide six air-conditioned shuttle buses to bring provincial government employees to and from their offices and points of origin.

The governor said his administration sustained a tough anti-rustling campaign which led to the drastic drop if not total elimination of cattle rustling activities in Pangasinan. To date, recovered from rustlers were P1 million worth of stolen cows and carabaos.

The police campaign against insurgency practically splintered the ranks of the dissident movement, pushing the remnants of the rebels towards Zambales and Tarlac areas.

As chairman of the Regional Peace and Order Council, Espino said he now seeks to integrate efforts of all leaders, police and military personnel to ensure a region-wide peace and security.

“With a safer environment, Pangasinan becomes attractive for investment and tourism, aside from providing sense of comfort and security to our local residents,” he said.

On health care, Espino said the upgrading of 14 hospitals to make these at par with private hospitals and the enrolment of more indigent families in PhilHealth is in the works

Under repair and renovation are the Lingayen District Hospital, Pangasinan Provincial Hospital, Manaoag Medicare Community Hospital, Mapandan Medicare Hospital, Bolinao Medicare Community Hospital, Umingan Medicare Community Hospital, Mangatarem Medicare Community Hospital and Pozorrubio Medicare Community Hospital.

All 15-bed capacity community hospitals will be upgraded to 24-bed capacity, under Espino’s administration. Aside from these, they have been equipped with brand new generators and soon echo-cardiogram machines, blood chemistry analyzer and basic hospital equipment.

He said the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital will soon establish a dialysis center with 12 dialysis machines.

A total of 26,005 heads of indigent families in the 4th and 5th class towns were already enrolled in PhilHealth with premiums reaching P4.8 million bankrolled by the province.

Presently being processed are health cards for 50,000 indigents in the lst and 2nd class towns while 8,083 health cards of indigents in 4th and 5th class are being renewed.

“We want to give extra attention and utmost health care services to the poor and powerless because they cannot afford expensive hospitalization in private hospitals and clinics” he said.

On family planning, the Espino administration is opting to give parents the support they need to determine for themselves the right size of their respective families taking into consideration their capability to provide the proper nutrition and health care of their children even as they are educated on how to lessen maternal and infant mortality

In agriculture, Pangasinan posted rice sufficiency level of 152 per cent with palay production from July 2007 to June30, 2008 reaching 1,057,117 metric tons from 233,814 hectares.

Productivity pegged at 4.52 metric tons per hectare or 90 cavans per hectare, equivalent to 21,142,329 cavans.

Corn production reached 249.947 metric tons from 43,099 hectares of land or a harvest of 5.8 metric tons per hectare, higher than the productivity record of 5.3 metric tons per hectare in 2006.

The provincial government also renovated the fish nursery in San Quintin, Dasol Breeding Station, Mangatarem, Breeding Station while there is ongoing renovation of the Bolinao Fish Farm and Mangrove Information Center, Mangatarem Breeding Station and Sta. Barbara Nursery.

For a higher quality in education, the province is now producing Teachers Guidebook for English, Science and Math subjects for elementary and high school levels.

To ease unemployment in the province, the Provincial Employment Services Office implemented a manpower development and employment program that resulted in finding jobs for 1,303 applicants.–LM

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