LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Newly inducted Mayor Greg Abalos will prioritize a master development plan for the municipality, this was barred in his inaugural speech over the week.

The master plan, he said “would picture what we want to be, ten, twenty, or even thirty years from today, a comprehensive development plan that we will all agree to undertake…a plan that we will all be a part of, a development plan that will no longer be for us but for the succeeding generations yet to come”.

Abalos said that the La Trinidad now is very different from the La Trinidad he grew up with.

“In October 1971, I took my oath as Mayor of La Trinidad in a ceremony in front of this municipal hall. I was chosen among the many boy scouts to serve as one of the officials of this municipality for one day, in celebration of the Boy Scout week. I was therefore the mayor of La Trinidad for one day. Today, after almost 40 years, I am again taking my oath, but this time as your duly elected mayor”, he added.

Abalos scored on the present problems that the municipality is now facing such as the worsening traffic problem; the vegetable trading post that has outgrown its space; the watersheds which no longer function as such, communal forests that seem to have outlived the purposes for which they were created; the mushrooming of houses everywhere, whether built legitimately or not; the subdivisions being constructed in the mountainsides; narrow roads that limit and affect traffic; and the calamity that struck last year due to typhoon pepeng which resulted to the loss of many live in the municipality.

These, he said in a separate interview were reasons why the municipality the urgent need of having a master development plan.

According to the National Census Office, for the year 2007, the population of the municipality has ballooned to 98,000 from a population of 28,000 in 1980, La Trinidad has a steady growth of 5.35 percent from 1980 up to the present as compared to Baguio City which has been steadily decreasing from 4.4 percent in 1980-1990 to 2.59 percent in 2000-2007.

Based on the population growth rate, Abalos said La Trinidad will have a population of more or less 180,000 by the year 2020. With a fast growing population and a limited space, we have to look for immediate policies that will prepare us for the problems that will arise due to the massive influx of migrants, he added.

“There is therefore a need to review our vision for the municipality”, he said, adding that he will request the Sangguniang Bayan to earmark a budget for a blue print of development that will address these seemingly insurmountable odds facing us today.

Aside from the master development plan, Abalos likewise barred that his office will create a Traffic Management Council, a Land Use and Environmental Concern Committee, and the possibility of producing energy from rivers and mountain winds.—larry madarang