Magalong trumpets Baguio’s economic, social gains

DAZZLING DISPLAY Fireworks light up the sky, as seen from BurnhamPark, on Sunday night to culminate the 115th Foundation Day celebration of Baguio City. —Neil Clark Ongchangco

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Mayor Benjamin Magalong on Sunday painted a rosy economic picture for this city, highlighting its annual gross local revenue collection reaching close to P2.5 billion, the rise in employment figures and a reduction in poverty incidence.

In a speech during the city’s 115th Foundation Day celebration on Sunday, Magalong reported that the P2.485 billion collected from July 2023 to June this year was on top of a significant drop in the city’s poverty rate from 1.7 percent in 2021 to 0.8 percent in 2023.

Baguio’s gross domestic product also rose by 11 percent (P155 billion) in 2022 with the number of enterprises growing by 2.33 percent, while employment increased by 8.72 percent last year, in the same year that Baguio’s gross revenue spiked by 18.4 percent, he added.

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The mayor also boasted of a drop in Baguio’s annual inflation rate from 5.1 percent in 2022 to 3.9 percent in 2023. The Philippine Statistics Authority has tracked a growth in inflation this year with high food and fuel prices scaling up the Cordillera’s inflation rate from 4.6 percent in June to 4.8 in July. But Baguio’s inflation dropped from 4.1 percent in June to 4 percent in July.

Strategic projects

Magalong said that of the city’s 85 “strategic and catalytic projects,” 20 have been completed, 15 were ongoing while 20 more may be undertaken through public-private partnership deals, among them an “intermodal transport terminal” pitched by a leading infrastructure developer.

These projects were designed to forestall the city’s “irreversible urban decay,” because overdevelopment and overcrowding have thinned Baguio’s resources like water, road networks, and green and forest spaces, Magalong said.

Last month, the mayor abandoned technologies like waste-to-energy and instead advocated a “waste-to-resources” scheme that would repurpose or recycle trash in order to reduce Baguio’s daily 400 tons of garbage.

Youth involvement

Magalong stressed that in order to protect the summer capital’s solid economic and social growth, Baguio residents must stand up against any form of corruption and encouraged the youth to participate in local governance.

“Silence is no longer an option. We can no longer afford to be silent. You must speak out against corruption. Continue and be passionate in promoting good governance,” said Magalong in his speech before city officials and guests that included US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson.

He added: “It is about time [we in Baguio] make a choice—either to be silent amidst the pervasive corruption that is now happening in the entire country or to speak up and act. Politics is becoming more profitable than industries. Our politicians and government officials are now richer than businessmen.”

Magalong said Baguio residents must not pass down this environment to their children, where “corruption is rewarded” because the result would be “manufactured poverty.”

“We are called to serve with integrity, honesty, efficiency and a clear vision of what we want Baguio to become,” Magalong said, stressing that without integrity and credibility “people will not trust us.”

The city was designed, built and opened to the public in 1909 by the American colonial government to serve as the summer seat of government and America’s first hill station. Baguio used to be a vast pastureland for cattle-raising Ibaloy clans who were its original settlers.