More famous and large companies are opening in Lipa City this 2nd half of 2015. Krispy Kreme, an American global doughnut and coffee house chain, is opening its first Batangas branch in SM City Lipa while Burger King, another American brand, is making its come back in Batangas through its first ever stand alone branch in Lipa City after it closed its SM City Batangas branch.
The other two companies that is soon to rise in Lipa are Japanese automobiles such as Toyota and Honda. Toyota has already started constructing its spacious building in Banay Banay while Honda has announced its location in JP Laurel highway within the vicinity of AMA Computer College and SM City Lipa.
Lipa City retained its billionaire city status since 2013 but 2014 income slid down by almost 8 million pesos from previous year according to Commission on Audit's Annual Audit Report for 2014.
Lipa City's Assets has increased by almost 133 million pesos to a total of more than 2 billion pesos in year 2014 while Liabilities has increased by more than 106 million for a total of almost 548 million at the end of last year. Meanwhile, City's Expenses has been reduced by almost 18 million pesos last year to a total of 1.06 billion pesos.
According to CALABARZON AAR 2014, every cities had their increase in Income except Lipa and Tagaytay while data for Binan, San Pablo, and Lucena are not yet available as of this time. Our neighboring city of Tanauan is the newest addition to the billionaire cities of CALABARZON with an impressive increase of more than 136 million pesos which is twice higher than Batangas City's increase.
Will Lipa remain 2nd to Batangas City in terms of Income from taxes or Tanauan will overcome Lipa by the end of 2015?
source: http://coa.gov.ph/index.php/local-government-units/2014/category/5388-batangas
Yesterday, I was invited to attend church service in Victory Lipa but before that I first prayed and visited the newest religious destination in Lipa which is the Mary Mediatrix of all Grace Parish in Antipolo del Norte. It was my first time to visit the church and I'm impressed.
According to an article in the Philippine Star, the church stands in 1.2 hectare property donated by Danny Dolor. It took 3 years for the chapel to be completed and designed by Fr. Alex Bautista, a priest-architect. It was dedicated only last Nov 2014 by Archbishops Gaudencio Rosale of Manila and Ramon Arguelles of Lipa and graced by Gov Recto, Cong Mendoza and Mayor Sabili. It is few meters away from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel which is a popular apparition site.
I find the place beautiful and neat but not yet complete. With its extensive land area that is yet to be developed, it seems that there's more attractions in place in this another location that makes Lipa worthy to be called "Little Rome of the Philippines".
Lipa City in National Ranking was #24 in 2013, #57 in 2014 and now fell to only #61 in the over-all ranking by National Competitiveness Council.
It was Infrastructure which pulled Lipa down behind other CALABARZON cities in over-all ranking. Last year, Lipa City finished at an impressive #39 rank in Infrastructure but dropped to #71 this year. However, there was a notable improvement in terms of Economic Dynamism and a bit of Government Efficiency.
In Component Cities category, Lipa is #13 nationwide and #7 in CALABARZON which is still behind Calamba, Batangas, Imus, Bacoor, Antipolo, and Dasmarinas. Tanauan is #18 while Santa Rosa is #21.
With 3 years of consistently going down the rankings among Cities of the Philippines, this should be a real challenge for Lipa City and its local government to focus on how it will be more efficient and how it will attract more investors and tourists considering Lipa has already an dvantage in terms of location and weather.
source: competitive.org.ph
July 16 2014, which was almost a year ago, when the worst typhoon to date hit Lipa City on top of my knowledge.
I was preparing to work at about 5 in the morning when I noticed our ceiling was being pumped by a strong air from outside and in few minutes we saw heavy water coming inside our home. It was a traumatic experience and we never thought that it will happen to our home. 70% of our roof was walloped by the strong wind and everything inside our home got wet. Big branches of trees also hit our home and blocked our gate.
The good thing about this typhoon was it never lasted long and stopped before noon. If the typhoon had stay longer, it has created a bigger casualty in Lipa.
As soon as the typhoon ceased, photos of typhoon aftermath in Lipa were posted here in LCP. There were several stories of damages and bad experience of the typhoon Glenda. Even big establishments like Robinsons and SM malls had damages in their buildings.
There was no electricity in Lipa City for an average of 5 days in city proper while there were some areas that had their electricity back after 2 or 3 weeks. Shortage of water, bread and other food were also experienced by Lipa. There was a long line of shoppers in grocery and supermarkets.
Typhoon season is here again and in the next weeks, the Philippines is anticipating strong typhoons to hit our country. We should always be ready for this unstoppable natural disaster by making our homes secured, having our emergency kits ready, storing easy to eat foods, wrapping our important documents in sealed plastic bag and making ourselves prepared.
I am just hoping that our local government of Lipa is prepared as well and has this Emergency Response Team and planned evacuation centers during typhoon and other natural calamities who will be available and dependable real time. Our local government should allocate a large amount of funds for this cause. Lipa City could be protected by two mountains and highly elevated but the world is changing and we have alarming change in distribution of weather patterns caused by humans.
