LINGAYEN – Just like in 2005, Urdaneta City again led seven other cities of the Ilocos region in terms of savings and assets last year as gleaned from the financial report of the Commission on Audit.

Urdaneta is a second class city like Dagupan but it now beats the latter in total income as well as in total assets although they are not very far from each other in expenses.

As gleaned from the COA financial report, Urdaneta registered P423.25 million last year, compared to Dagupan City which registered the second highest savings in the region at P349,292 million.

Dagupan was found however to have incurred total expenses of P311.83 million, which was the highest among all eight cities in the Ilocos region.

Urdaneta scored the second highest in expenses at P344.48 million but this was balanced by its having the highest total income for the year.

Urdaneta’s performance is quite phenomenal because it attained its cityhood only in the late 90s while Dagupan became a city way back in 1947.

Records showed that Urdaneta registered the highest total assets of P1.074 billion as compared to Dagupan’s P776.07 million, which incidentally was the region’s second highest.
Laoag City in Ilocos Norte, San Carlos City in Pangasinan and San Fernando City in La Union, all in third class category, trail both Urdaneta and Dagupan in financial performance.

Laoag is third in total income at P349.92 million, followed by San Carlos at P309.19 million and San Fernando at P298.20 million.
Laoag was the region’s third highest spender at P349.29 million, followed by San Fernando at 284.17 million and San Carlos at P210.16 million.

Although a fifth class city, Alaminos surpassed Candon, a fourth class city, in point of income last year.

This is aside from the fact that Alaminos had the lowest expenses last year among all eight cities in the Ilocos region at P154.38 million.

Alaminos also beat Vigan in terms of total assets at P323.92 million to the latter’s P312.87 million.