Pangasinan governor: 2009 very fulfilling, yet challenging

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan , Philippines  – Very challenging yet fulfilling.

That’s how year 2009 is, in Pangasinan as Pangasinenses would surely never forget because of the biggest-flood ever that submerged 75 percent of the province.

Just as the province under the command of Gov. Amado Espino Jr. was still trying to rise up by rebuilding the damages wrought by strong typhoon Cosme in May the prior year that devastated mostly towns in central Pangasinan, an equally strong typhoon named Emong struck towns mostly in the western part May of 2009. Yet, Pangasinenses picked up the pieces and joined hands once more to rise up to the challenges.

Help in various forms came in but these were never enough to totally reconstruct what were severely battered by the typhoons. Then on the night of Oct. 7, a harrowing experience happened again when typhoon Pepeng unleashed its wrath and heavily flooded about 75 percent of the towns and cities in Pangasinan located mostly in the eastern part and in fourth district towns in the central part of the province.

For the first time in Pangasinan, rampaging floodwaters aggravated by heavy volume of water released from the San Roque Dam submerged houses and made many towns isolated, fishponds overflowed, crops and other agricultural products destroyed, road networks scoured, the biggest shopping mall in Rosales was also in total mess.

People stayed on top of their rooftop to escape death, dikes were breached, stranded vehicles along the highways bumped into each other, and about 62 people died due to drowning, while about P8 billion worth of government projects were gone to waste.

After the storm, a rainbow

Pangasinan had its most trying time in 2009 yet Pangasinenses’ never-say-die attitude remains steadfast.

Espino, equipped with a strong will to lead his provincemates to once more hold on together, was successful in his goal toward fast rehabilitation. When interviewed by The STAR, he recalled a text message sent by someone from the National Disaster Coordinating Council who said that Pangasinan indeed was back on its feet at a very fast rate. The sender told him that because Pangasinan has a leader who could lead and inspire the people to stand up, everybody else participated and immediately moved.

“They say we are the fastest province to recover from disasters and I would like to commend everyone who helped and the undying spirit of the people to continue to hope, pray and move for a better Pangasinan,” he said.

Because of what happened, funds supposed to be spent for various planned projects were instead used for the repair and rehabilitation of government facilities.

As a result, massive rehabilitation efforts were done in typhoon-affected areas and investors stayed on, and in fact poured in more money like in the case of SM Rosales which re-opened after only more than one month of repairing the damaged huge shopping mall in time for the Christmas shopping spree of Pangasinenses.

Best in health care

A mall magnate, Dagupan City Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez whose CSI chain of malls were also among those damaged by the typhoons, said, Pangasinenses indeed have that kind of unity amid adversity that paves the way toward fast recovery. She said, this had been manifested when Dagupan City was also heavily devastated by a strong earthquake in 1990.

It was also in 2009 that the provincial government’s health care program had its banner year after 12 dialysis machines donated to the province were delivered to serve sick Pangasinenses through the dialysis center established at the provincial government-owned Pangasinan Provincial Hospital in San Carlos City. Also this year, Espino said Philhealth card members whose premiums are paid by the provincial government have reached the 210,000 mark that makes Pangasinan possibly number one in the entire country.

All the 14 hospitals under the provincial government had been upgraded in terms of their facilities and services in 2009.

And to serve their patients better, each of them will have one new and one reconditioned ambulances, Espino said.