DINGALAN, Aurora—The only Aurora municipality in the southern portion of the province is making a strong case to exit from its mother province into the waiting hands of the more adjacent province of Nueva Ecija.
First-term Mayor Shierwin Taay said he was open to an old proposal to annex or incorporate his town to Nueva Ecija but only if his townmates vote for it in a referendum.
“If the people of Dingalan want it, then why not?,” replied Taay when asked if he was willing to have the town become the 28th town of Nueva Ecija, Central Luzon’s biggest province in terms of land area.
“But I would like to have a dialogue first,” he said, with the leadership of Aurora, starting with Gov. Gerardo Noveras and his predecessor, former three-term governor and now Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo.
“The question is, is it more practical to be part of Nueva Ecija than with Aurora?” Taay said.
The new mayor, a former executive director of the National Youth Commission, received a popular mandate in the last elections over a long-reigning political family.
“For a start, may be we can transfer jurisdiction of national government agencies under Aurora to Nueva Ecija such as the Social Security System, the National Bureau of Investigation, Government Service Insurance System, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., the Philippine Statistics Authority, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine National Police,” he said.
The proposal to transfer this 54-year-old, third-class town from the administrative supervision of Aurora to Nueva Ecija was first floated when Renato Diaz, a former presidential adviser for Central Luzon, was still a congressman representing the first congressional district of Nueva Ecija in the 1990s.
Aurora itself was formerly a province of Calabarzon, composed of the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon. But it was transferred to Central Luzon by virtue of an executive order issued in 2003 by then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo because it was nearer Region 3 than Region 4.
Pound for pound and resources for resources, Aurora is very much poorer than Nueva Ecija. Aurora covers eight municipalities and has an annual Internal Revenue Allotment of about P500 million.
In contrast, Nueva Ecija covers five component cities and 27 municipalities. Its IRA is more than P2 billion.
Diaz reasoned out that Dingalan will make an ideal port for Nueva Ecija, a land-locked province.
But this proposal was opposed by Angara-Castillo who said “she would leave no stones unturned to block the move.”
Diaz’s proposal never prospered, stymied by the presence of former Senate President Edgardo Angara and Angara-Castillo.
Former Nueva Ecija three-term fourth district congressman Rodolfo Antonino also signified an interest to have Dingalan annexed to his province but to no avail.
Some local groups in the town have been pressing for the transfer of Dingalan to Nueva Ecija, citing the fact that they can reach Palayan City—the provincial capital—through the well-paved roads of Gabaldon and Laur in less than an hour.
In contrast, Dingaleños who have businesses to transact with the provincial government have to travel to the provincial capital of Baler the route of which snakes through the Nueva Ecija towns of Bongabon, Rizal and Pantabangan and takes about three hours.
Because of geographical and isolation issues, they complained that the town gets only scant attention not only from the national government but even from the provincial government itself.
Taay admitted that patients from his town often seek medical relief in Cabanatuan City instead of traveling to Baler.