Creation of 2nd district in Parañaque hailed

After waiting for almost three years, Parañaque will finally have a greater voice in the House of Representatives after President Arroyo signed the creation of a second legislative district in the city.

Both Parañaque City Mayor Joey Marquez and Rep. Eduardo Zialcita both hailed Republic Act 9229 that amends the law covering the conversion of Parañaque from a municipality to a city. This would mean the election of another congressman to represent the city.

"This is good news. We will now have two representatives in Congress. We had been working for the passage of this bill for three years," Marquez said.

For his part, Zialcita said: "This means that we would have two of everything and we would be more focused in attending to the problems of each district." One of the perks of having two legislative districts is having additional development funds to finance projects.

Under the amended law, the 16 barangays have been divided into two legislative districts.

Barangays Baclaran, Tambo, Vitales, Sto. Niño, Dongalo, La Huertea, San Dionisio and San Isidro fall under District 1 while BF Homes, San Antonio, Sun Valley, San Martin de Porres, Don Bosco, Merville, Marcelo Green, and Moonwalk form part of the second legislative district.

Marquez, who is about to complete his final term as mayor, intends to run as congressman in next year’s polls. Both Marquez and Zialcita are members of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party.

With the creation of a second district, both may no longer have to fight for the same seat.

However, it appears that Zialcita is registered in the second district and Marquez is a resident of BF Homes, which also falls under the same district.