MBTF: It’s UnliSerbisyo vs. UnliPerwisyo in Dagupan
CHOICES FOR MAY 2025 ELECTIONS
DAGUPAN Mayor Belen Fernandez, who is running for reelection in May, revealed she was not surprised at all when Councilor Celia Lim opted to be her challenger in the May 12 election because Lim’s son Brian did not do well as mayor of Dagupan from 2019 to 2022.
Speaking during the program “Coffee Break” over at Energy FM radio on February 18, she said the younger Lim left the city government in shambles with records missing, projects that were sub-standard, ghost deliveries of purchased motorboats, and a worsened garbage problem despite millions spent for supposedly hauling rubbish to sanitary landfill sites.
Fernandez also criticized the Lim matriarch for being the leader of the seven-member majority bloc in the city council that sabotaged her administration’s programs and projects by blocking passage of supplemental budgets and all the annual budgets of Dagupan.
In the coming election, she said, the electorate of Dagupan have two choices: The “Unliserbisyo” team that she heads along with Vice Mayor Bryan Kua as her running mate, and the “UnliPerwisyo” team headed by Lim with her son Brian as her running mate.
She said the Unliserbisyo team has a solid service performance to show while what all the UnliPerwisyo team did in the past two and a half years was to oppose and impede development.
The mayor said there are now more than 100 infrastructure projects simultaneously ongoing in Dagupan, 10 of which have just started on February 17, while 20 other projects are expected to start soon and a few others still up for bidding.
All these projects, she noted, were funded by the P557.2 million Supplemental Budget No. 2 of 2024 and the 2025 annual budget of Dagupan in the amount of P1.6.8 billion, which were both enacted after the minority took over the majority in the Sangguniang Panlungsod following the 60-day preventive suspension of three opposition councilors by the Office of the President.
The ongoing city-funded projects of Dagupan are being complemented by infrastructure projects funded by Senators Riza Honteveros, Jinggoy Estrada, Francis Tolentino, Ramon Revilla Jr., former Senator Sonny Angara and soon Grace Poe as well as the Abono Partylist through Rep. Robert ‘Eskimo” Estrella Jr.
Fernandez vowed to continue implementing planned solutions to the city’s flooding problem and waste management and pursuing more projects to boost the local economy. (Leonardo Micua)
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