MABALACAT CITY — This city’s Mayor Marino Morales and Magalang Mayor Romy Pecson said yesterday they are throwing full support to the revival of a 10-year-old proposal to slice Pampanga’s first congressional district and make neighboring Angeles City a distinct district with its own representative.
“This move will be to the advantage of all the three LGUs within the first district as this would entitle local folk to more representation in Congress, on top of other benefi ts,” Morales said.
The proposal, first made in 2004, was recently revived in a resolution by Angeles City officials who called on political leaders of Mabalacat and Magalang to also support the move. At present, Pampanga’s first district covers
the cities of Angeles and Mabalacat and the town of Magalang.
Morales has urged 1st District Rep. Joseller Guiao to push through with the proposal for a new Pampanga district by immediately holding public consultations on this. “First, we should know the real sentiments of the people in government, private sector and multi sectoral organizations in the first district,” said Morales.
Vice Mayor Christian Halili also hailed the proposal as “a good political move on the part of Mabalacat City since this would lead to more chances of somebody from Mabalacat or Magalang landing in Congress.”
Over the past decades, congressmen representing the first district hailed from Angeles City with Guiao, a native of Magalang, bucking the trend in the May 2013 elections. For his part, Magalang’s Pecson described the separation of Angeles City from the First District as a “win-win” situation.
“If this pushes through, Mabalacat and Magalang will no longer have to share funds with Angeles,” he noted.
Angeles Vice Mayor Vicky Cabigting noted that her city’s current population of around 300,000 already qualified Angeles as a lone district. The lone district proposal was first made in 2004 but it did not take off. It was revived in 2007 by former Rep. Francis Nepomuceno under House Bill 5317 which noted that “the recent conversion of Clark Field into the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) and its declaration as an international port of entry completed the transformation of Angeles City into a highly urbanized center of population not only in the province of Pampanga but also in Central Luzon.”
The proposal also noted that “separating Angeles, as a chartered city, from the two municipalities would only be proper since under Section 12, Article 10 of the Constitution, cities that are recognized by law as highly urbanized are to be considered independent of the province where they are located.”
