By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff Reporter
City of Batac—Local officials here enjoin all government offices, private institutions and all concerned to use “City of Batac” as the official name of Batac and not “Batac City’’.
In a resolution approved by the Sangguniang Panlungsod, it calls for the use of City of Batac as its official name as based on Republic Act No. 9407.
Being classified as fourth class municipality in 1987 then becoming a first-class municipality in November 2005, Batac hurdled all requirements needed to become a city on 2007 under the administration of former Mayor Jeffrey Jubal Nalupta.
On June 23, 2007, Batac was proclaimed as component city by virtue of RA 9407, “An act converting the municipality of Batac in the Province Ilocos Norte into a component city be known as the City of Batac”.
In November of 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines heard a petition filed by the League of Cities of the Philippines declaring the Cityhood Law (RA 9047) with the other 15 cities as ‘unconstitutional’.
However, the 16 newly converted cities including Batac fought for their cityhood.
After a long fight, the Supreme Court finally declared the cityhood laws converting the 16 municipalities into component cities as “constitutional in a “final and executory” decision on June 28, 2011.
At present, Batac councilor Kitchel Jomarie Pungtilan, who sponsored the measure, said there are still some who use “Batac City”, which is supposed to be “City of Batac” after the RA that made it a city.
In view of this, Mr. Pungtilan said they need to enjoin all concerned to use the official name “City of Batac’’ so the people may know.
Batac Vice Mayor Atty. Windell D. Chua, also one of the main sponsors, said they needed to pass the resolution to formally recognize the official name of Batac not for local residents but to those from outside the city to use,
Mr. Chua stressed that “City of Batac” should strictly be used so that the children would be able inculcate into their minds the official name of Batac, including all government and private agencies, and other institutions so that the people not only in the city of Batac would be knowledgeable and reminded of the official name of Batac.
In a random interview with the people of Batac particularly students, their schools already use the “City of Batac” as the Batac Dept. of Education began using this name after its conversion into a city.
However, they admitted that they also sometime still use “Batac City” in their school work and teachers ignored this instead of correcting them.