Taking a stopover at Urdaneta City
BUSTLING and booming best describe Urdaneta City today.
The newly-widened section of the Manila North Road (formerly called MacArthur Highway) that passes through the city serves as a major crossroads that leads towards the eastern and western parts of Pangasinan and onwards north to other parts of Luzon.
This puts Urdaneta in a very strategic location and the city has taken advantage of this to position itself as the “Gateway to the North” and the “Commercial Center of Eastern Pangasinan”.
Urdaneta has also come to be know as the “bagsakan” (main trading post) of Pangasinan, as its central market along the main highway serves as the drop-off point for various fruits and vegetables coming from the different municipalities within the province and as well as other nearby provinces within the Ilocos Region and the Cordilleras. The farm products traded in wholesale or sold in retail here are always fresh and offered at comparably low prices.
The city is also the home of the largest cattle market in Northern Luzon.
Urdaneta also hosts the most number of financial institutions in the north with 110 rural bank branches, 63 commercial banks, 17 savings and mortgage banks, eight specialized government banks as well as 251 non-banking financial institutions.
In Education, Urdaneta City has more elementary and secondary schools than any other city or town in Pangasinan. At the same time, it serves as the center of education in the eastern part of the province given its number of colleges and universities located here.
Travelers going further north in Luzon or touring around Pangasinan will find Urdaneta the perfect halfway stop with several Department of Tourism-accredited hotels, resorts and restaurants.
And while on a stopover here, it would be worth exploring Urdaneta because even if the central part of the city has now developed into a busy urbanized area, a drive through the inner roads still provides a charming and idyllic view of rural life where the air is sweet and the people are always ready with a welcoming smile.–Daniel S. Bagaoisan, LNU
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