Cainta, Rizal municipal administrator Keith Nieto announced Saturday that the town's eye center is now equipped and manned to conduct modern cataract surgeries using the phacoemulsification procedure.

Nieto, whose wife Elen took over as town mayor after he completed three consecutive terms, said the facility now boasts modern equipment like biometry, automated refraction and keratometry machine.

The facility also has an eye operating microscope, phacoemulsification machine, and other instruments and supplies needed for the procedure, including expensive lenses.

"We started the operations yesterday. Our three ophthalmologists already started operating on nine patients," Nieto said in a social media post.

Compared to the old procedure (extra-capsular cataract extraction), the phacoemulsification procedure results in cuts that are smaller resulting in the faster recovery of patients, Nieto explained.

"We can operate on any type of cataracts. Whether it's soft or hard, we can now operate because of our new machines," the former mayor added.

Nieto said the procedure shall be free for all Cainta residents.