P100 M released for P’sinan bridge

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — President Arroyo announced the release of P100 million to resume the construction of the 600-meter long Domalandan Bridge, which links this capital town to the western part of the province.

"I hope this will be good news for the New Year and for the Lingayen fiesta," Mrs. Arroyo told some 3,000 residents and students at the Pangasinan National High School.

She visited the high school’s historic Gabaldon building which was built sometime in 1908 and which is slated for restoration.

Mrs. Arroyo said that before the expanded value-added tax law was passed, funding for the long-stalled Domalandan Bridge had been released on installment basis.

"But now thanks to the sound fiscal management of our executive-legislative partnership, we (now) have funds," she said.

"I just talked to (Budget and Management) Secretary Romulo Neri and (Public Works and Highways Secretary) Hermogenes Ebdane. I instructed them to release P100 million on Monday for the continuation of the Domalandan Bridge," she said.

She said the remaining P120 million for the bridge’s total completion will be released as soon as possible, depending on how fast the contractor can do its job.

"This is another breakthrough," said Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.

Second district Rep. Amado Espino Jr., who has vigorously worked for the release of the funds, said this is the President’s belated Christmas gift not only to the people of Lingayen but also to all Pangasinenses.

Engineer Fidel Ginez, regional director of the Department of Public Works and Highways, said the bridge is now about 73 percent complete and about P540 million of its total P720-million funding has been released.

The old bridge was destroyed by successive typhoons sometime in August 2001.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Arroyo said her number one priority in the first week of 2006 is education and she wants to close the classroom gap in grade schools.

On secondary education, she noted that many private high schools don’t have enough students and "we don’t want them to close."

"Our DepEd (Department of Education) money will go to building grade school classrooms and we are giving out high school vouchers," she said.

Under this system, she said students can enroll in private high schools if their schools don’t have enough classrooms, and the DepEd will extend P4,000 assistance per excess student, who could not be accommodated anymore in a particular school due to classroom shortage.

The President said the towns of Calasiao, Urbiztondo and Sison sorely lack classrooms and that there are about 1,000 students in Pangasinan alone who could not be accommodated in their schools.

For these 1,000 students, the "vouchers" would cost about P4 million which instead of being used to build new classrooms and hire new teachers could go to the province to implement the scheme.

She said this scheme, embodied in the Medium Term Plan for 2004 to 2010, was implemented years ago under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Schools but is being expanded now. — With Cesar Ramirez