“THE PRESSURE IS on. We have one year to go. I said that we will do in three years what others do in fifteen. The pressure is on our hospital to make it run in the next two months, the pressure is on our adventure park and water park and every other parks that we are building to make it run in the next four to five months, the pressure is on the Engineering to make sure that all roads that are being built will be finished within the year, and I was so worried that Puregold will not open before my term even ends. But my term will end on June 30 of next year and I have been told that the timeline for this is 12 months. So, that's June 18, 2019.”
The City Mayor, accompanied by some members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, Congressman Arnie Teves, department heads, consultants, and representatives of Puregold led by Mr. Antonio Delos Santos II and Architect Hubert Co, did the honors of laying the time capsule during the groundbreaking ceremony for the new three-storey shopping mall on the afternoon of June 18, 2018 at what was once the old city hall grounds. Puregold will soon stand on a 1.2 hectare block (roughly 17,000 square meters of prime urban lot). As the architectural design presents, it is a department store up and supermarket down plus other locators and 2 movie houses on the sides. It will cost 468 million for the contractors. In its construction, 80% of the skilled workers must be Bayawanons and 80% of its employment force should be Bayawanons.
“So if we do all things right, If we cooperate, if we make sure all obstacles that they will encounter will be addressed properly and efficiently by all of us concerned then I think it is possible. Then all the things we said before we even started would have been done on our first three years. After this, you know every well, so many things are coming. if you saw in the newspaper yesterday—it was already published—our biomass powerplant will be in Kalumboyan. Within the next few days, DBP will also come here so that we can start our chicken industry program for the private stakeholders and the government as well. With DepEd we offically include in our curriculum in the Senior High the contact service operations, our long-term planning of the dream of letting the call center operations and the BPO come to our city.”
On a 30-year lease agreement, Puregold paid 361M to Bayawan City-LGU. The said amount will be spent for these priorities: 11M for 2 units of street-sweeper trucks, 13M for cane loaders and tractors, 155M for road networks in various barangays, 60M for the poultry dressing plant, 20M for the sports complex, 5M for Narra Water Park (slides), 60M for the City Engineer's Office (tools and equipment), and the remaining 20M as reserved for immediate fundings.
Ibayaw ang Bayawan!