Daet bats for cityhood

DAET, Camarines Norte --- The local government of this town will continue to fight for its clamor for cityhood despite of the seemingly difficult obstacles hampering its way towards the realization of its claim. It will continue to strengthen its resolve to regain control over two of its neighboring municipalities to comply with the needed 10,000 hectares land prerequisite to finally convert Daet into a city.

Currently, Daet have only 5 hectares but if the LGU can regain control over the two barangays in dispute- San Pascual and San Lucas of Basud, total land areas combined would sum up to 11 hectares - just enough to comply with one of the remaining pre conditions under the Local Government Code.

The law calls for at least 100 square kilometers municipality land area with an equivalent population of not less than 150,000 inhabitants to get the nod for cityhood.

Daet Mayor Tito S. Sarion is confident that they can take back the two barangays whose rein still belongs to Basud. The Chief Executive added that the two barangays, including the locales covering the Bicol National Park is owned by Daet and that they have strong evidences to prove the veracity of their claim.

Sarion also emphasized that they will not wane in their effort to convince the Lower House of the authenticity of their petition. While he understands that the process might take time due to the complexity of their case, he is confident that by 2016, his dream for Daet will finally come true.

The remaining challenge is to generate an average annual income of P100M for the last two consecutive years and met the population requirement being cited by the Local Government Code.

“We are confident that the income that we have now, is sufficient to meet the required annual average revenue. We have a P30M government center and a P30M terminal housing our transportation utilities. These are only two of the other income generating facilities that we have, not to mention the total facelift that we recently embarked on. We are hopeful that the Congress can see all of this and consider our plea for cityhood,” Sarion said.

Among the six (6) provinces in the Bicol Region, only Camarines Norte and Catanduanes do not have a city in its jurisdiction. Camarines Sur has two cities- Iriga and the Chartered City of Naga; Albay has three- Legazpi, Tabaco and Ligao, Masbate City in Masbate and Sorsogon City in the province of Sorsogon.