URDANETA CITY – Cities in the Ilocos region and various parts of the country can learn a lot on how to manage their resources well from Urdaneta City.

A financial report of the Commission on Audit for 2006 showed Urdaneta topping all eight cities in the Ilocos region in terms of total income, total assets and total equity.

City Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. said the city government does not have any secret for the success other than diligent tax collection yearly and proper allocation of resources.

He said that he saw to it that the funds of the city were invested on self-liquidating projects “that would provide income as well as jobs.”

This enabled Urdaneta, only on its ninth year of cityhood, to move up to number one spot in terms of total income at P423.235 million, surpassing all city local government units in the whole Ilocos region.

Perez said the projects for which the city invested huge sums of money like the cattle market, public market, bagsakan market and others are now stable income-earners for the city.

He said his administration maximized tax collection efforts instead of imposing additional taxes to the people.

At the same time, he mayor said he saw to it that there was utmost transparency in all the expenditures of the city government, adding that every single centavo spent was accounted for.

Perez stressed however that they are not consciously competing with other cities in the region and the country in terms of getting accolades and praises for their development efforts. ‘We’re just doing what6 we ought to do,” he said.

Urdaneta is a second class city. With its current financial performance, many believe it could soon attain first-class status possibly ahead of older cities like Dagupan.