MABALACAT CITY – Noel or Noli?
Voters in Pampanga’s newest city will certainly have some confusion with the two challengers to long-standing Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales.
Noel Castro, the sitting vice mayor, is running as an independent. One Nilo Castro, Jr. is the candidate of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP). The latter, a resident of Barangay San Joaquin, ran for the town council and lost in 2010.
Whichever, a no contest in favour of Morales is seen here at this early with both Castros “fighting for second place,” said one R. Paul E. Carpio of Barangay Dau, the city’s biggest barangay with some 23,000 registered voters.
“Boking will win, hands down,” Carpio said, “if only for fathering Mabalacat City.”
Castro – the vice mayor – campaigned hard against the Mabalacat cityhood despite his earlier endorsement of it in the sangguniang bayan and his lobbying for it at the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“The defeat of the anti-cityhood group lead by Castro and the victory of the pros led by Boking will go on to 2013,” Carpio said.
First elected mayor in 1995, Morales is said to be finally vying for his last term.
Aside from making Mabalacat a city, Morales established the then Mabalacat Community College – now the Mabalacat City College – the first ever local government-run tertiary level school in the province.
Mabalacat City College predated even the City College of San Fernando and the City College of Angeles.
Morales has also increased tax collections in Mabalacat City through his initiatives in the granting of the five percent gross income earned (GIE) from the locators and investors at the Clark Freeport Zone to Mabalacat and other LGUs comprising the Mtero Clark area.
The conversion of Mabalacat into a component city will also increase the internal revenue allotment (IRA) share of the city next year further improving delivery of basic services.
Morales is also credited for the rehabilitation of the lahar-buried barangays at the northern part of Mabalacat into a vibrant commercial-industrial and residential center now considered as “the next Makati north of Metro Manila.”
