Another SM City to rise in progressive Cabanatuan
Seen along the stretch of the Cagayan Valley Road is a billboard announcing “SM City Cabanatuan Soon to Rise.” The soon to be constructed SM City Cabanatuan will bring to five the number of shopping malls operating in this country’s “Biggest Little City.”
“SM City conglomerate’s top honchos are putting up an SM City mall here because of the city’s strategic location, it being Nueva Ecija’s center of trade and commerce and the gateway between Metro Manila and Luzon’s southern and northern provinces, ” said City Engineer Lauro Pangilinan. The city has adequate infrastructure, telecommunications, water and electric supply and public transport, the sine qua non for a viable and sound business operation, he said. SM investors are also attracted by the city’s low business tax rates, peaceful and orderly condition and such other come-on investment incentives as one-stop shop and tax holiday for new business applicants.
Big-time investors in banking, residential subdivisions, supermarkets and other business and industrial enterprises, were similarly drawn to do business in what was once the Philippine version of the wild, wild west, Pangilinan continues. To make sure the Cabanatueños would benefit from the investment infl ow, the city government headed by Mayor Jay Vergara has entered into an agreement with the SM City management and other concerned business establishments whereby Cabanatuan residents will be given priority in the latter’s hiring of personnel. SM City Cabanatuan alone is expected to generate 10,000 new jobs.
As of 2011, there were 46 operating banks and 71 other financing and lending institutions, 98 housing/ subdivisions, seven memorial parks and 3,980 other registered business establishments in the city. Last year 75 commercial buildings had been constructed and this year, many more are under construction.
Cabanatuan is a 63-year-old component city of Nueva Ecija which today is being proposed for conversion into a highly urbanized city, according to Pangilinan. Once the proposal is approved by the residents in a plebiscite, Pangilinan expects more investments for the city. “This,” he said, ”would mean more revenues for Cabanatuan and direct and indirect work opportunities for its citizenry.”