LINGAYEN, PANGASINAN — Gov. Ramon “Mon-mon” Guico III may be the only Pangasinan governor who has visited twice the mountain village of Malico in San Nicolas town in a span of nine months.
Governor Guico first traveled to Malico as governor on October 19, 2022 to dialog with village residents there after he spoke at the Ilocos Region Indigenous People’s Summit.
Last March 20, Governor Guico returned to the village to inaugurate its Barangay Disaster Operations Center. The inauguration coincided with the first out-of-town session then of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan led by Vice Gov. Mark Ronald DG. Lambino.
“The governor’s visits were clear affirmation that Malico is part of Pangasinan,” said provincial administrator Ely Patague.
Malico, which sits on top of the Caraballo Mountain, is a one-hour drive via Pangasinan-Nueva Vizcaya Road or Villa Verde Trail from San Nicolas, is being claimed by Nueva Vizcaya as part of its Santa Fe town.
It is called “Little Baguio” because its cold climate is similar to Baguio City’s, although it has higher elevation than the country’s summer capital.
The Pangasinan-Nueva Vizcaya Road, which crosses the Caraballo mountains, is the newest direct link of the Ilocos Region to the Cagayan Valley. The other one is the Maharlika Highway, which connects Pagudpud town in Ilocos Norte province and Santa Praxedes town in Cagayan province.
But despite Nueva Vizcaya’s territorial claim, the mountain village contiunues to benefit from the services rendered by the Pangasinan provincial government.
In addition to the Barangay Disaster Operations Center, Patague said the provincial government will also establish a tourism office and a barracks for the Philippine National Police.
To prepare village officials to effectively respond to a disaster, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) conducted a Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation –Disaster Risk Reduction and Basic Life Support Training in the village last December.
At least 40 barangay officials and health workers in the village participated in the training.
After the training session, the PDRRMO distributed 300 family food packs and 50 health kits and vitamins. The Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office also gave special gifts to the village’s elders.
For the longest time, the Malico National High School and Malico Elementary School belonged to the Pangasinan II division of the Department of Education, a proof that Malico is a part of Pangasinan.
During a meeting at the Governor’s Office here last year, Malico barangay captain Jaime Segundo said that Pangasinan was the only province to which his village belonged.
Segundo, 61, says that it was in that mountain village of Pangasinan where he was born and where he grew up, and he has always been proud of San Nicolas as the town of his birth.
(PangasinanPIO)
