By Mortz C. Ortigoza
“Iloilo City has left Dagupan
City by countless miles in progress,” I told last week
my elementary classmate
as I sipped my latte at Starbucks in Manduriao, Iloilo City by pointing the
overlooking world class ten lanes complete with gardens and bicycle lanes'
Benigno Aquino Avenue or commonly called the Diversion Road.
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| ILOILO CITY. Economically bursting world class Benigno Aquino Avenue in Iloilo City. Look at the eight lanes highway, the two bicycle lanes and the gardens. |
Just
like the vision in Dagupan, three growth centers have been carved-out in
Iloilo that became a linchpin for her economic mega growth that experts
compared her now to Cebu and Manila.
“Iloilo had done these economic leaps for the
past several years while the anti-progress vice mayor and councilors in Dagupan
procrastinate since 2014 to approve the revised Comprehensive Land Use Plan
(CLUP) (the old CLUP was created, susmariosep, in 1978),” I told Mayor
Belen Fernandez and Councilors Netu Tamayo, Jigs Seen, Alvin Coquiao, and
Marcelino Fernandez, the last two kept nodding their heads in agreement, in a press conference called by the Mayor last Wednesday after the CLUP was approved
by the City Council.
Its
approval however was tainted by acrimonious debate, disparaging accusation, and illegal adjournment
by Vice Mayor Brian Lim and his three councilors’ allies.
I
told them that Iloilo has new triangular economic hubs in Kapideco (Ayala
Project) Estates, SM Properties, and the Megaworld Iloilo Business Park.
These
billions of pesos investments draw thousands of Ilonggos as call center agents
and other workers in the malls, townhouses, restaurants, hotels other companies
there.
The
call centers, according to Wikipidea, source-out their employees from the
countless universities and colleges there.
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| DAGUPAN CITY. The almost business empty four lanes' Jose de Venecia Highway Extension. |
Workers
in Dagupan City and the huge almost three million populated Pangasinan province
have to find jobs in the congested Imperial Manila because leaders in
Pangasinan, except Mayor Fernandez, could not decide how to provide employment
for them.
I
told the mayor that to enlighten our officials and people in the city about our
being a “pariah” is to send somebody to Iloilo City to document and video it
and show to her family owned widely subscribe cable TV the chutzpah made by
leaders there for us to follow if not envy it.
“Para magising at maingit tayo sa
katotohanan na because of parochial thinking naiwanan na tayo ng ibang
siyudad,” I stressed.
Here
are some excerpts from Wikipedia about the ballyhooed Iloilo City’s economic "miracle" :
“Underground
provisions for public utilities such as electricity, water, telephone lines had
been provided, thus finally removing the spaghetti wires along the stretch of
Diversion Road. The project included additional three pedestrian overpasses, a
footbridge across Dungon Creek, jogging and biking lanes, and a beautiful
landscape”
