Editorial
Urdaneta City and Pangasinan show them how!
At the outset, The PUNCH congratulates the officials of Urdaneta City for the city’s unprecedented outstanding financial performance as a city in year 2005.
We extend our sincerest congratulations as well to the provincial government team led by Gov. Victor Agbayani for keeping Pangasinan’s financial standing a model to reckon with in the Ilocos region. It’s certainly not easy to stay on top of the heap when others are out to win impressively.
As reported by the Commission on Audit, Urdaneta has bested not only Dagupan City but the rest of the pack in the Ilocos region in terms of net income, gross income, total assets and total equity. To say that what the feat achieved for itself is phenomenal would be an understatement. More than that, it is an outstanding precedent-setting in governance of local government units.
Urdaneta has, in more ways than one, shown that any city can achieve greater heights for its constituency if public service is equated with public office. By its example, it has demonstrated that only through full transparency and accountability can governance work for the people it seeks to serve.
While other municipal and local government units would do all to co-opt a designated COA official in an attempt to cover-up irregularities in the collection and disbursement of funds, City Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. has seen it fit to direct the COA official in his city to conduct surprise inspection and accounting of collected funds and to religiously comb all reported expenditures. This is a policy practically unheard of in today’s governance.
To the credit of Gov. Agbayani, his administration has not been saddled with financial scandals and this has enabled the provincial government to move deliberately and on course.
Take a bow, Mayor Perez and Agbayani! Time to acknowledge your constituents’ admiration and gratitude for being the public servants that they had expected you to be.
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