It’s official: San Pedro town in Laguna now a city

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has proclaimed this town a city, following a plebiscite that ratified the city charter.

Juanito Icaro, Comelec director in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), said 16,996 local residents voted “yes” for cityhood while 869 voted “no,” of the total votes cast of 17,865.

Icaro said poll records showed that of the 160,777 registered voters here, only 17,783 or 11.06 percent participated in the plebiscite held last Saturday.

Comelec officials, however, could not explain the discrepancy in the total number of votes cast, which was 82 more than the number of voters who took part in the plebiscite.

San Pedro election officer Marian Marfori, in a phone interview Sunday, said they would have to check the discrepancy.

But she said that “in case there was some mistake in the tallying, it won’t affect the proclamation… since therewere still more “yes” than “no” (votes).”

San Pedro is the sixth municipality to become a city in Laguna province. The other cities are Biñan, Sta. Rosa, Cabuyao, Calamba and San Pablo.

President Aquino signed San Pedro’s city charter last March.

San Pedro information officer Sonny Ordoña said cityhood status is San Pedro’s ticket to the so-called “billionaires club” of local government units, as it is expected to double its annual Internal Revenue Allotment beginning 2015.

San Pedro, a highly industrialized area, currently receives P350 million as its annual IRA share, according to Ordoña.

He said the new city also earns over P350 million a year in the form of business taxes (P100 million), real property taxes (P60 million), special education fund (P60 million), other fees and charges (50 million), and miscellaneous income (P100 million).