A NEW TACK TAKEN

CITY Mayor Benjamin Lim has conceded that the financial report published by the Commission on Audit listing Dagupan City as a tail-ender in terms of savings among eight provinces in the Ilocos region for 2005 is true, but not in terms of performance.

“Kulelat ang Dagupan in terms of balance at the end of the year but it does not mean na kulelat tayo sa performance,” Lim told a local radio station last Thursday.

Last week, City Administrator Rafael Baraan publicly refuted COA’s findings and challenged it to a debate to prove the data wrong.

The mayor adopted a new tack to interpret the COA data and maintained that the performance of a local government unit is not measured in terms of its savings but on how it uses its money to improve the life of its people.

“We should see on how the money of the LGU is being spent,” he stressed.

Dagupan, the mayor said, has many programs and projects to fund, i.e., social services for nutrition and population control, health services, environmental sanitation, day-care centers and others.

“It is not on how much money is retained by the LGU at the end of the year but rather on how much it has done to improve the life of its constituents,” the mayor said in Pilipino as he pointed out that the city has to spend what it earns in terms of taxes to provide these needs.

He also pointed out that Dagupan invested in land banking, buying lands where the landless people will build their own houses. He cited the MC Adore Hotel which the city bought for P50 million and now an added asset and anticipates the property to appreciate some more.

“So, hindi puwedeng sabihin na porke ang natitirang pera ng Dagupan ay mas mababa sa ibang lungsod ay kulelat na tayo. Hindi yon ang basehan,” Lim reiterated.

However, he did not cite the city’s purchase of the 30-hectare land in San Jacinto in 2001 intended for a sanitary landfill. The controversial purchase of the overpriced land has not led to the construction of the promised landfill.

He also cited the fact that Dagupan is no longer IRA (internal revenue allotment)-dependent like it used to be four and a half years ago before he took over.

Lim said that the total collection from business and real property taxes when he assumed office in 2001 was only P100 million as compared to P200 million now, or 100 per cent increase. The ratio between the IRA and collections from local taxes used to be 62 per cent to 38 per cent, whereas the ratio now is 65 per cent to 45 per cent, he said.

The mayor also claims Dagupan is the only city in region one that bought its own dredging machine to de-clog its silted rivers that otherwise should be done by the Department of Public Works and Highways and the national government. The city also bought Vactron machine for it to clean canals, adding that every body is being benefited from this kind of investment.

He failed to explain, however, the constant flooding in many areas in the city in spite of the presence of the dredging machine. In contrast, San Carlos City which also purchased its own machine has been boasting of flood-free city since it bought the equipment a year ago.

“Kung gusto nila ay contest ng savings, hindi na tayo gagasta. Hind na tayo gagalaw, Madaling gawin yon,” he said but was emphatic about making Dagupan as the educational and medical center of the north, as well as a convention center.

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