Deputy Speaker and Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales, Jr. presses the passage of a bill converting the municipality of Mexico in Pampanga into a component city.
Gonzales filed House Bill 1683 on the premise that Mexico, Pampanga, classified as a first class municipality, has met all the requirements, and none of the disqualifications, as provided for in Republic Act 7160, or the amended Local Government Code of 1991, to become a component city.
Citing Section 450 of the Code, Gonzales explained that a municipality or a cluster of barangays may be converted into a component city if it has a locally generated average annual income, as certified by the Department of Finance, of at least P100 million for the last two consecutive years based on 2000 constant prices.
The law also required that the town being sought for conversion into a component city must meet either of the following requisites: a contiguous territory of at least 100 square kilometers, as certified by the Land Management Bureau; or a population of not less than `150,000 as certified by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
A landlocked municipality in the coastal province of Pampanga, Mexico is composed of 43 barangays with a total land area of 117.41 square kilometers or 45.33 square miles which constitutes 5.87 percent of the province’s total land area.
It has a locally generated annual income of P105.5 million in 2018 and P193.4 million in 2021 based on the certificate issued by the Bureau of Local Government Finance of the Department of Finance.
“This legislation is a reward for the collective hard work, perseverance, and self-reliance of the citizenry of Mexico, with the able leadership of its officials, led by Mayor Teddy Tumang,” Gonzales said.
He also emphasized that such measure will be an excellent instrument in pushing the vision of the municipality: to become a leading industrial and commercial city in the heart of Pampanga, inhabited by resilient and God-loving people governed by honest and efficient public servants.