ELEVATING BURAUEN

“Our high human resource income contributes to our town’s possibility for cityhood, which Burauen Community College put up the largest share.”

MUP goes to Eastern Visayas for nat’l costume prelims

Miss Universe Philippines 2023 candidates visits Eastern Visayas for 5-day activities around the region from May 1-5, 2023.

Thirty-eight of the countries beautiful ladies will conquer the region starting with a Flores de Mayo motorcade in the city central and will jump-off the city port for a much deserve San Juanico cruise. The city government of Tacloban also prepared a barrio fiesta themed dinner for this year’s candidates.

The second day is jampacked with a spark Samar adventure, visiting the Tandaya Trail Tour and Sohoton Caves and Natural Bridge Tour in Basey and Caluwayan Palm Island Resort in Marabut, Samar and will enjoy a sumptuous dinner hosted by the Leyte Provincial Government.

On May 3, the candidates and the organizers of MUP is set to explore Kalanggaman Island in Palompon, Leyte.

The most awaited national costume competition is slated on the fourth day at the Leyte Normal University HRDC Alba Hall which is also be aired via livestreaming in all social media platform of MUP. This event will be hosted by beauty queen Gazini Ganados and actor-host Marco Gumabao.

May 5 will be scheduled for various activities such as charity activity at the SOS Children’s Village, cultural and heritage tour around Palo, Leyte and Tacloban City, and they are also expected to offer flowers at the Yolanda Mass Grave.

“I am very much happy that my MUP sisters are currently in our region and I’m so excited to introduce our food, sceneries, heritage and culture,” proud Waray Airissh Ramos representing Eastern Samar said in an interview with The Dove.

After the week-long event in Eastern Visayas, the candidates will strut the stage on May 10 in Okada Manila for the preliminary competition and will gear up for the coronation night on May 13 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.

This was emphasized by Juanito E. Renomeron, Municipal Mayor of Burauen, during an interview with the official student publication of Burauen Comprehensive National High School (BCNHS), The Dove, where he addressed the plan to apply for cityhood, April 28.

Renomeron shared that there are three qualifications to become a city: Land Area of at least 100 square kilometers, Annual Income of at least PHP 100 million, and Population of not less than 150,000, and Burauen met the first two requirements.

“We have 310,000 hectares and local source revenue of about PHP 108 million last year. A city must have at least 150,000 population, however as of now, we only have about 52,511, so we are not qualified in that,” said the Municipal Mayor.

He further recalled that former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in April 2022 signed Senate Bill 255, proposed by former Senator Panfilo Lacson, which disregards the population and land size of a municipality applying for cityhood if it accumulated a local income of PHP 100 million for two successive years. Even so, Burauen’s decision to apply for cityhood will depend on whether Kananga, a first-class town that intends to apply for conversion to city, will be accepted.

“Burauen may be capable if the Municipality of Kananga becomes recognized as a city, and if that happens, Burauen will submit an application for cityhood next year, 2024,” expressed Renomeron. The Local Chief Executive also shared that LGU Burauen built a community college solely for community services, unaware that it would be an income-generating project. And through the downloaded PHP 64 million funds from the Unified Financial Assistance System (UniFAST) through the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for the students of Burauen Community College (BCC), which was added to last year’s actual local source income of PHP 44 million, according to him, brought the local source revenue up to PHP 108 million last year and met the quality of a city of having an annual income of PHP 100 million.

“This year, we could have more than PHP 131 million local source revenue because the number of enrollees [in BCC] is around 3697 for the second semester of school year 2022-2023, and we received PHP 11,000 average tuition from the UniFAST for each student, amounting to PHP 40.667 million, and there is a projection from the treasury that in the upcoming first semester for school year 20232024 in August, the number of enrollees will exceed 6150. If the projected revenue is accurate, Burauen can be eligible for two successive years of more than PHP 100 million in annual revenues,” explained the Municipal Mayor.

Renomeron concluded that if there are any potential prob- lems—such as rising taxes and an increase in population—they would be negligible because the conversion of a municipality into a city has numerous advantages. The national tax allocation Burauen receives as a municipality is lower than what Burauen may receive if it is transformed into a city since fewer places share the national tax allocation of a city than that of a municipality.