ANGELES CITY -- Endorsing mayoralty candidate Vice Mayor Bryan Nepomuceno, leading reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara on Monday vowed to allocate funds for the improvement and operation of the City College of Angeles (CCA).
“Congratulations to the City College of Angeles and to your future mayor, Mayor Bryan Nepomuceno,” Angara said in a video message he sent during political rally on Monday, March 18, in the city attended by some 3,000 supporters of Nepomuceno.
The senator lauded Nepomuceno for his desire to provide quality education to his constituents.
“Alam ko na unang-unang sa kaniyang plataporma ang quality at saka accessible education, at magtutulungan kami ni Mayor Bryan na mapondohan ang lahat ng pangangailangan ng City College of Angeles (I know that his first priority in his platform is accessible education so we will work together to fund the needs of the City College of Angeles),” Angara said.
At the same rally, a representative of former special assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go said that, if elected senator in the coming May mid-term elections, he will help make funds available for the upgrade of the Ospital Ning Angeles (ONA).
For his part, Nepomuceno expressed gratitude for the support of national leaders to his priority programs on free college education and quality health services for the poor residents of Angeles City.
“With the support of Senator Angara and soon-to-be Senator Bong Go and the support all Angeleños, we will be able to deliver on our promises in the next three years of our administration,” said Nepomuceno.
Angara has consistently placed in the top six winning candidates in the senatorial race based on national surveys of both Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia. Go, President Duterte’s closest top aide, ranked number six to number 12 in the latest Pulse Asia survey conducted from January 26 to 31 this year.
Nepomuceno earlier vowed to spend P1 billion for the CCA and another P1 billion for ONA.
“We will build new classrooms, offer more college courses, get more professors and educational equipment so that we can increase the number of students at the city college from 2,000 to 4,000 students,” Nepomuceno said.
“For ONA, we will expand it to have more hospital beds and doctors, launch a residency program, buy more medicines and supplies, ambulances and medical equipment and facilities so that we can improve ONA from being a Level 2 to a Level 3 public hospital,” Nepomuceno added.
Nepomuceno’s runningmate for vice mayor, incumbent city councilor Edu Pamintuan, said that “it is not only that some 1,128 poor students have already graduated from the CCA, most of them have immediately found good paying jobs because CCA graduates have a high employability rate of 70 to 90 percent.”
Pamintuan said that from 2011 to 2018, the city government spent some P632 million for the city college including construction of its first multi-level school building worth P320 million.
For the ONA, Nepomuceno said that from 2010 to 2018, the city government spent some P1.215 billion for the public hospital where 95,421 patients were admitted for treatment, an additional 73,675 people treated in its Out-Patient Department, and another 59,678 dialysis patients at its Renal Care Unit—a legacy project of incumbent Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.
“It is important that ONA be upgraded as a Level 3 public hospital so that we are allowed to admit and treat patients needing specialized treatment so we won’t have to transfer them to the JBL regional hospital in San Fernando,” Nepomuceno said.