Second Benguet congressional district

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- Is it still early or is it long overdue? Time and again politicians in Benguet attempt to approve resolutions seeking to divide the province into two congressional districts. However, after a resolution’s approval, those who signed it fail to sustain their initial move to follow up.

The reasons for pushing for a second congressional district are all laudable. There is nothing to lose and more to gain. Of course, the initial considerations of the proponents are the funds for infrastructure development projects.

But there is more to explain to their constituents when it comes to funding government projects. It is not as simple as promising to them or making them believe that funds will double or increase because there are two districts.

My high school classmate who has worked with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) since the time of President Ramos said, all funds for national government projects pass scrutiny to avoid unnecessary spending and double funding.

We know that the DBM is responsible for the efficient and sound implementation of the national government’s funds and revenues to accomplish the country's development goals.

In most cases, double funding is hidden when two or more projects have different titles but their scope of works are the same. In other cases, such as in road projects, the kilometer stations overlap.

These things happened in the past and continue to happen so that without prior inspection and analysis, our taxes can land in unscrupulous people’s pockets.

So there, while it is easy to say that the province can “double” its share because of having two legislative districts, the naked truth is that each congressional representative can only ask for funds for his district, not for the whole province.

To make the picture clearer, if a whole stretch of road passes through two separate legislative districts, then the congressman can ask for funds from the national government, only for the repair of that part of the road within his district.

The other congressman will do the same for that part of the road in his district. However, the two district representatives of one province cannot be asking for two separate funds each for the improvement of the whole road stretch.

That has to be explained, otherwise people in Benguet might believe that having two legislative districts in the province will result to having “double” improvement as what the proponents said.

Everyone agrees that it is better for a province if there are more congressional districts. As earlier said, there is nothing to lose and more to gain. But gain in terms of easier effort in acquiring national funds for health, education and social services.

But before that, let us first examine if the province has what it takes to have two legislative districts. The law requires that one district should have a population of at least 250,000.

It also requires that the towns or cities comprising it are contiguous, as far as practicable. Why was that placed in the Constitution? Because there are towns and cities in the country that belong to a congressional district but are not adjacent to each other.

Case in point is Caloocan City with a total area of 55.80 square kms. and a population (2015 census) of 1,583,978. It has two districts that are not adjacent to each other, in the same way that the barangays that comprise each district are not contiguous.

The 1st District of Caloocan is comprised of 70 barangays that are not adjacent to each other, while the 2nd District is comprised of 118 barangays that are not also contiguous.

To demonstrate further, Caloocan is one city but it is divided into two geographical locations with Valenzuela City in the middle. The divisions are simply described as North Caloocan and South Caloocan where the northern tip is bounded by San Jose del Monte in the province of Bulacan, while the southern part is bounded by Quezon City.

In the case of Benguet, it has a population (2015 census) of 446, 224. It was hastily divided into two provincial election districts with District 1 having a population of 147,941 comprising only five municipalities namely; Bokod, Itogon, Kabayan, Sablan and Tuba.

For District 2, it has a population of 298,283 and comprises the eight municipalities of Atok, Bakun, Buguias, Kapangan Kibungan, La Trinidad, Mankayan, and Tublay.

The distribution of the municipalities in the arrangement that was rushed for purposes of election districting sometime between 1992 and 1994 was not balanced so that with the 2015 population census, the two districts have a disparity of 150,342.

The corresponding populations as of 2015 census are: Atok - 19,668; Bakun - 15,357; Bokod - 13,756; Buguias - 43,627; Itogon - 59,820; Kabayan - 15,260; Kapangan - 19,361; Kibungan - 17,292; La Trinidad - 129,133; Mankayan - 35,953; Sablan - 11,457; Tuba -     47,648; and Tublay - 17,892.

By considering the populations of the municipalities and their positions on the map, there is the option that they can be rearranged to minimize the disproportion between their populations and balance their positions. Doing so will not violate any law and will make the proposal more acceptable.