The city’s main tool for all these plans and projects is the P600 million plus budget. It intends to spend it wisely to maximize the benefits for the people. This budget for 1999, as those in the years past, carries with it the city’s commitment that the less fortunate members of its citizenry should get a bigger share of the benefits.

The city’s public works as well as its school buildings were done mostly by administration so that more jobs may be created for our citizens. Its free education, health care, our settlements program, public works have all been geared to help the poor sector.

>The city believe that unless it makes a determined effort to make this sector more productive they will find it more difficult to shift for themselves. They will throw themselves at the mercy of the government. To paraphrase Clarence Darrow, "one cannot be secure, unless his fellow citizens are secure, you cannot be free if I am not free". Sa bibig ng ating Pangulo, "Walang tutulong sa Pilipino kung hindi ang kapwa niya Pilipino".

Marikina City was particularly affected by this policy. Its advantages as a prime investment destination for new investors, principally its proximity to shipping facilities, mill supplies, financial services, amenities to executives, markets and skilled labor etc., have been negated. Industrial activity declined and workers had to find employment in the outlying provinces to survive.

To reverse this trend, the then Municipality of Marikina under Mayor Bayani "BF" Fernando saw fit in 1995 to work with the Board of Investments for the lifting of this locational restriction. The principal argument for this move is that it is counterproductive for the government to allow manufacturing infrastructures already in place to remain unutilized in highly urbanized areas. While generating employment in the preferred less developed areas (LDAs), the policy foments unemployment and underemployment in highly urbanized areas. He stressed the need for the renewal of urban areas hallowed out by the flight of industries to the countryside.

Recognizing the merit of Mayor Fernando's reasoning, the BOI supported as a pioneering effort the inclusion under the 1998 Investment Priorities Plan, of "Urban Community Redevelopment" as a new category under "Industrial Estates". This will be an exception to the general rule, that development of industrial estates must be outside Metro Manila, Laguna and Cavite.

Marikina City is one of the ten cities and seven municipalities comprising the Metro Manila area (National Capital Region). It is approximately 16 kilometers east of the city of Manila passing through Quezon City and the Municipality of San Juan. It lies within 14º 35 latitude and 14º 41 longitude.

Nestled in a valley at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, it is bisected by the Marikina River and has an aggregate area of 21.5 sq. kms. It is bounded on the east by the City of Antipolo, on the north by San Mateo, Rizal, on the west by Quezon City and on the south by Pasig City and Cainta, Rizal. Its terrain is characterized as level with only a portion mildly sloping. About 73% of the total land area has a slope of 0 - 2.5%.

The ground of the area is mostly alluvial deposits with underlying layers of clastic rocks comprising mainly of interbedded shale and sandstone with occasional thin layers of limestone, tuff and reworked sandy tuffs, calcareous sandstone and partly tuffaceous shale. The alluvial deposits, on the other hand, are unconsolidated mixtures of sand, gravel with considerable silt and clay. Main entry points to Marikina City are Aurora Boulevard coming from Quezon City; Marcos Highway in the south from Pasig City and Cainta, Rizal, Sumulong Highway in the east from Antipolo City, and J.P. Rizal in the north from San Mateo, Rizal and the eastern portions of Quezon City. Balara-Farmers Road from the West also provides access to Marikina from the University of the Philippines area.

B. Land Use

About 46% of the city's land area is used for residential purposes, and 36% for industrial, institutional, parks and recreational use. A breakdown of the city's existing land use pattern are shown.

Of these firms, 44% or 477 are shoe shops spread out in almost all barangays, 16% or 170 are into food/bakery, 5% are into garments, and slipper shop and bag making with 3.9% and 4% each.

Among the manufacturing firms, the large industrial establishments of 1997 are listed below. Marikina is hosts to some of the biggest and largest industries in the country today, such as Fortune Tobacco Corp. – cigarette manufacturing, Purefoods Corporation – meat processing, BF Goodyear – tire manufacturing, Noritake Mariwasa – ceramics manufacturing, Manila Bay Spinning Mills Inc. – thread and hoisery, Philippine Cocoa Corp. – confections, etc.

2. Commercial Establishments