Being Billionaire

It must be stupefying for the people of Pangasinan, especially the poor, to learn that their province is a “billionaire” interms of its Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

And not just a billionaire, mind you, but the top billionaire in the entire country in those terms.

Truth is, it should not be all that surprising.

After all, the IRA, which is the share that local government units get from the national internal revenue tax collection, is largely based on the population level.

Section 285 of Republic Act No. 7160, or the Local Government Code of 1991, provides that the computation of the IRA will be based on population (50%), land area (25%) and equal sharing (25%).

Pangasinan, based on the last published census results of the National Statistics Office, is the largest province in terms of population at 2,434,086 as of the turn of the century. With an average annual growth rate of 2.4%, the Pangasinan population is expected to double by 2029.

In terms of land area, Pangasinan also ranks among the biggest with 5,368 square kilometers, that’s the largest in Region 1 and third within Luzon Island.

What is really astounding about this IRA piece of news is how Pangasinan has been unable to be, at the very least, at par with the others in the billionaires club in terms of development.

Supposedly, under Section 287 of RA 7160, “Each local government unit shall appropriate in its annual budget no less than twenty percent (20%) of its annual internal revenue allotment for development projects.”

Now where has all that money been going?

It is admirable that Governor Amado Espino Jr., who has been very vocal about his gripes over Pangasinan’s underdevelopment, has seemingly stopped his lamentations. At this point, he has called on the leaders under his administration to get their act together and propel the province into realizing its potentials.

We await, as provincial administrator Rafael Baraan puts it, the rise of this “sleeping giant”.

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