Once upon a city

IT WAS the worst of times.
A city in ruins, devastated by the worst calamity of the 20th century. Its infrastructure in shambles – fallen bridges and collapsed buildings; villages reduced to ghost towns; the city hospital eroded to its very foundation, devoured by rampaging mudflows.
A city in the direst financial straits, its very economic base abruptly, and totally, uprooted with the last of the GI Joes stampeding out of the equally devastated – and thoroughly looted – Clark Air Base. It’s peripheral industries – manufacturing and export of handicrafts, furniture and garments – buried by the ashfall that crushed the factories. Businesses joining the hegira of the citizens to elsewhere.
A citizenry on the brink of despair: in that gray landscape of desolation, of interrupted lives and broken dreams, what ray of hope can still come through, better yet, come true?
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IT WAS the best of times.
The fate of the city not so much fixed on the stars but in the resiliency of its people and the character of its leader, character cast in the crucible of crises: The Marcos dictatorship brought out the freedom fighter and human rights champion in Atty. Edgardo Pamintuan; the Mount Pinatubo devastation birthed the leader in Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.
And thus came to pass – in less than three years time – the triumph of Angeles City over the Pinatubo tragedy.
Even as the city needed all the funds it could scrounge to rehabilitate and rebuild, Pamintuan deferred the imposition of higher tax rates. This gambit paid off with local revenues reaching P47 million, a P10-million or 27 percent increase over the previous year’s. Plus the internal revenue allotment of P148 million, the income of the city rose to P195 million – the highest ever recorded at that time.
Most manifest in the increase in revenues were the restoration of the public’s trust in the city government, as well as the confidence of the investors; and the integrity and efficiency of the city government’s tax collection scheme, to say the least.
Factored here too was the revival of manufacturing in the city – with some 700 establishments engaged in woodcraft, furniture and fixtures, textiles and garments, leather and footwear, metalcraft, food and beverages, chemicals. Which caused the return of the city to its pre-eminent spot as top exporter in the region, at $36.5 million per records of the Department of Trade and Industry, which comprised 63 percent of all exports from Pampanga.
To further expand the base of the local economy, Pamintuan preached and practised the gospel of cooperativism, which materialized in 70 coops with over 3,000 members getting training and initial funding from the P79.3 million allotted for economic services.
The upturn in the local economy contributed greatly to the enhanced peace and order situation in the city. No high profile crimes were committed. Even the petty ones were at an all time low.
Gone, the Americans may have been. The Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ), yet to tap even just a quarter of its potential for development. The Clark Airport still a destination only for migrant birds. But foreign tourist arrivals had started picking up, with 40,095. Over 12 percent higher than 1993’s entry.
The CSEZ nonetheless engaged the services of 5,000 local workers.
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PINATUBO’S CONTINUING fury – in ashfalls and lahar, coupled with the social costs obtaining in any city: basic health services, sanitation and environmental care, education, population concerns, drug abuse prevention, the control of sexually transmitted afflictions, comprised the main social agenda of the Pamintuan administration, funded with P67.8 million. Which marked a 333 percent increase in per capita allocation for social services at P180.30 over 1992’s P41.60.
Innovations and interventions in health care merited Angeles City the Most Outstanding City in the National Immunization Day campaign of the Department of Health for topping all other cities nationwide in exceeding the target by 102 percent.
And the Angeles City General Hospital was resurrected from the grown up with a 42-bed facility constructed through a P21-million grant from the US Agency for International Development, and with modern medical equipment donated by the World Medical Relief Inc. based in Detroit, Michigan.
In education, P2.6 million was appropriated for the special program for employment of students. This on top of the regular scholarship fund for poor and deserving students. Not forgotten was the welfare of the public school teachers with an additional P1.5 million released through the local school board for additional allowances.
In infrastructure, P33.1 million was spent for the repair and construction of roads and drainage systems. Intensified lobbying was undertaken for the reconstruction of the Abacan, Pandan and Friendship bridges by the national government.
The continuing need for habitat of the Pinatubo victims, as well as the urban poor, constrained the city government to purchase some three hectares for a resettlement site.
Yet another recognition for the city was its being adjudged as one of the Five Cleanest Cities in the Philippines – along with Olongapo, Davao, Iligan and Baguio – meriting a Presidential Award of Excellence.
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A PERFORMING city is only as good as a performing bureaucracy. The city hall employees received the full range of benefits of uniform allowance, hazard pay, 13th month pay, longevity pay, cash gift and other incentives. Salaries and wages were never delayed.
Clean. Peaceful and orderly. Sound economic policies. Business-friendly. Citizen-centered. Working and contented bureaucracy. Leadership integrity. Thus was Angeles City in 1994, with Edgardo Pamintuan as mayor. So the city shall soon again be.