Why Ownership of Malico is High Stake for P’sinan, N. Vizcaya?

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

The dispute between the provinces of Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya on the ownership of highly elevatated mountainous village’s Malico is high stake.

THE CLOUD KISSED verdant mountain ranges of Malico in San Nicolas, Pangasinan.

The cloud kissed verdant rolling hills pine tree smelling 1,675 meters above sea level (masl) barangay is higher than the 1,470 masl of Baguio City. Malico is a threat to be at par or eclipse Baguio because of the dilemma of the latter on the vehicular traffic congestion that Mayor Benjamin Magalong and the city council proposed a series of congestion fees as high as P250 during peak hours to discourage up to 72,000 vehicle owners to use the city streets to avoid gridlocks.

Designed and built by the American colonial government to accomodate 25,000 people, the Pine City’s population grew by 366,358 (as of the 2020 census) and its narrow roads (349 kilometers in total), could only take 145,416 individuals.

ECONOMICS BENEFITS

Malico – nearer than Baguio for tourists that hail from Manila, Regions 2 and 3 – will be a draw to people and investors.

Ownership of the village nestled on the Caraballo Mountain means hosting tourists, clubs, hotels, restaurants, golf courses, parks, and other entertainment services. Not to mention the residential areas and vacation houses that would be built there.

A ten-storey hotel means revenue for the local government units (LGUs) of Malico, her mother town San Nicolas, and Pangasinan through real property tax (as the government counts the square meters per floor of the edifice) being paid yearly and the business tax the proprietor will pay annually to the village and the town.

Other taxes that the LGUs could collect are professional, amusement, exporter, retailer, contractor, and others.

Registration of the hotel and other services to Barangay Malico, Santa Fe in the second class province of Nueva Vizcaya means the three LGUs of the first class province of Pangasinan will be deprieved of these exactions.

LINCPINS FOR THE GROWTHS OF BAGUIO AND BORACAY

These taxes continue to make Baguio City and Malay (that hosts the vaunted tourists’ draw Boracay in the world) in Aklan Province as money churning LGUs in the Philippines.

In 2023, the first class town of Malay as seen on the arguments on the bill filed by Senator Imee R. Marcos to make her as a component city in the following excerpts:

-          The town collected in 2023 P62.31 billion from tourist arrivals.

-          No. 9 among all municipalities in the Philippines in terms of local revenues by collecting P365, 723, 937.

Wikepedia says:

-           Malay has one airport known as Caticlan Airport.  The runway was extended to 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) in 2016, allowing bigger aircraft like the Airbus A320 to land at the airport.

Malay is considered the strongest economy in all the municipalities in the Region and the richest municipality of Aklan in terms of income and annual budget.

Including the national tax allotment (NTA) –the successor of the internal revenue allotment (IRA), because of Boracay the town of Malay could have an annual budget of between P600 million to P700 million this year, I surmised.

TOURISTS ARE THE SPARKPLUG FOR THE GROWTH OF AN LGU

In a lunch tendered to me at SM Center Dagupan yesterday by the two top honchos of SM Supermalls that supervised the three branches in the province of Princess Urduja, Assistant Mall Manager Michelle Charlene B. Chua told me that the highest earning branches of SM Prime Holdings yearly in Central and Northern Luzon and the Cordillera is (from highest to lowest) SM City Baguio, SM City Clark, one of the two SMs in San Fernando City, Pampanga, and SM-City Rosales in Pangasinan.

I analyzed after this conversation that even Pangasinan and San Fernando have more population than Baguio City, the SM there draw more customers because it caters to the thick pocketed tourists that flux there from all over the country.

Here are my data from Wikipedia how the local government of Baguio City benefited on the high spending tourists in the summer capital of the Philippines being threatened now by Malico that the provincial lawmaking body of Pangasinan declared as the Summer Capital of Pangasinan:

-          P2, 745, 274, 171 approved 2024 budget – or an increased of 14% from the previous year.

-          The breakdown of the budget reveals a diverse set of revenue sources, with internal sources contributing P1,196,787,000,00 (44%) and external sources accounting for P1,488,487,171.00 (54%). The remaining 2% comes from the beginning balance of P60,000,000.00. The Internal Sources consist of the Tax Revenue – P760,810,000.00 (28%) and Non-Tax Revenue – P435,977,000.00 (16%)
Meanwhile, the External Sources are the city’s shares from the National Tax Allotment – P1,234,987,171.00 (45%), Economic Zones – P250,000,000.00 (9%), and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office – P3,500,000.00 (0%).

Oh by the way, allow me to digress a little. Because of the burgeouning number of SM patrons, Chua – a former band singer - told me that after SM City – La Union in San Fernando City is inaugurated this year, the top management of SM looks whether to construct another mall at San Carlos City in Pangasinan, San Jose City in Nueva Ecija, Tambac in Dagupan City, or add another third storey at the SM Center in Dagupan City because of the growing demands of customers.

HIGH STAKE, ANYONE?

Let’s go back to my first sentence above this column: Do you think my premise that the dispute between the gargantuan 3,163,190 (2020 census) populated Pangasinan and lilliputian 497,432 (2020 census) populated Nueva Vizcaya is really high stake?

Here’s Pangasinan Governor Ramon V. Guico III exhorting the folks of Malico when he visited them last July 3 (this author was there, too shievering in his jacket to the much colder than Baguio City’s weather of the controversial verdant village) for distribution of goodies and sums from his personal account and medical services from the provincial government:

“Well, will put an initial we allocated an initial P200 million for Malico,” he emphatically told them about the appropriation for social and medical services.

(Folks at the gym applauded)

“Pag-aagawin pa nila ang Malico (If Nueva Vizcaya wants to land grab Malico), P200 million uli! Ano game ba kayo?!”

(Folks at the gym applauded again)

The guys who did not applaud for sure are the LGU officials of Sta. Fe and the provincial government of Nueva Vizcaya.