First District gets P2B this year

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

 BOLINAO – The First Congressional District got  roughly P2 billion for infrastructure and other projects because the area is huge compared to other districts in the Pangasinan province.

Pangasinan First District Representative  Jesus Celeste

 Pangasinan First District Congressman Jesus “Boying” Celeste said for this year, the district has received P1.4 billion regular allocation from the national budget, and P600 million appropriations to his district from the Departments of Education, Tourism, and others.

 “Our area is bigger here that’s why we have a bigger budget,” he said when asked why another congressional district in Pangasinan has only P700 million allocation as regular budget this year.

 A congressman of another district earlier told Northern Watch that the reason the first congressional district has a bigger allocation was because its area is starting to develop while other congressional districts in the province have almost done their infrastructure projects.

 Celeste is preoccupied with projects in the district’s nine towns and one city, which include concreting roads, improving tourism sites, coastal highways, and is planning to construct a bay walk just like in the second and the fourth congressional districts of Representatives Leopoldo Bataoil and Christopher de Venecia.

“One of our projects is fencing the highway going to the airport in Alaminos,” he cited.

He said the national government giving budget to the airport project  would be a stimulus for the economic growth of the district which has pristine beaches, swanky hotels, and other tourism come-on.

He said in the past that the presence of an airport and casino will leapfrog the financial viabilities of the hotels and pristine beaches here, Alaminos City and other towns because of the influx of local and foreign tourists like the Chinese, South Koreans, Taiwanese, and others who will relish the full package of a casino and beaches.

 Celeste is a member of the Committees on National Defense and Security, Appropriations, Games & Amusement, Natural Resources, North Luzon Growth Quadrangle,  Reforestration,  Science and Technology, and Tourism in the House of Representatives.

He is serving his last term as the solon of Western Pangasinan that will end on May 2019 election.

A source, who asked anonymity, said that Celeste will be running for the mayoralty post of Alaminos City versus the rumored opponent the City’s Vice Mayor Jose Antonio Miguel Y. Perez while the present Mayor Arthur Celeste, his younger brother, will run for the congressional race versus the rumored opponent Under Secretary Tim Orbos of the Department of Transportation and Communication.