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IT takes an entrepreneurial mind to design ways to
alleviate poverty in Camarines Sur.
Located in the heart of Bicol,
the peninsula at the southern tip of the Philippines’ main island,
Luzon, Camarines Sur is one of the country’s 40 poorest provinces.
About 40 percent of its 1.7
million population live below the poverty line, defined as earning
$1 a day or less per person.
The province covers an area of
526,682 hectares—521 times the size of the original Makati’s
upscale residential and business district.
Shaped like a galloping horse,
Camarines Sur is the largest of Bicol’s six provinces, all of
which are among the 40 poorest.
Camarines Gov. Luis Raymund
“LRay Villafuerte” Jr., 39, is tapping two areas with which to
leapfrog Camarines Sur into the 21st century—tourism (sports and
ecotourism) and information technology (such as call centers,
business process outsourcing, English and Japanese language
proficiency, medical transcription and 2D animation).
150-hectare capitol
LRay is developing portions of
the 150-hectare capitol in Pili, the provincial capital town. The
property was acquired by his predecessor, his father, Luis
Villafuerte Sr., governor for nine years until 2004.
Bought for only P2.5 million, the
sprawling complex is now worth P1.8 billion, making the provincial
government rich, in assets and, probably, also in cash.
Half the size of the Makati
commercial district, it is the largest provincial government center
in the country.
Lray finished political science
at Manila’s De La Salle University in 1980 before attending a
course at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2003. He wanted to
become a lawyer too but his father suggested, “Why don’t you try
business?” LRay did try business. Barely 22 then, he put up
Lara’s Gifts and Decors, Inc., in 1990 with P50,000 in capital and
three workers.
Today, LGD has 5,000 workers,
over P400 million in assets, a four-hectare factory in Taguig, and
showrooms in New York, Minneapolis and Hong Kong, supplying unique
handicrafts (what he calls “technocrafts”) to upscale chain
stores like Target, Pier One Imports, Linens ’n Things and Bed,
Bath & Beyond. After his election as governor in 2001, his wife,
Lara, took over LGD management.
Entrepreneurial zeal
LRay is employing the same
entrepreneurial zeal and creativity to turn Camarines Sur around.
For tourism, Villafuerte built a
P50-million wakeboarding lake within the complex. It has become a
stunning success. “Daily, we receive 100 guests,” he says,
“all of them want to wakeboard.” “Wakeboarding has become the
province’s biggest attraction,” gushes President Arroyo.
“Everyone believes this is the
best wakeboarding complex in the world,” says Reuben Buchanan, the
CWC manager, noting its cable setup, equipment, six pylons,
obstacles, and the lake’s flat waves. The flatter the better for
wakeboarders.
Wakeboarding is the
fastest-growing extreme sports in the world, says LRay. He estimates
there are two million wakeboarders and only 150 facilities for
them in the world. Europe and America have a shortage of
wakeboarding facilities which are used at most for only four months
of the year. In winter, the water is frozen. In the fall, the wind
is chilly.
IT and tourism
For IT, LRay put up a building on
a 5.8-hectare portion of the provincial complex. This is the IT hub
and it houses schools or classrooms to train Bicolanos in English
proficiency, nurses and caregivers destined for Japan in Japanese
language proficiency, medical transcribers, and illustrators in 2D
animation. There is even a nursery serving as day care center for
children of provincial government employees. All are free for
Bicolanos.
To prepare for the throngs of
tourists, Villafuerte is building a 100-room hotel, effectively
expanding the present 17-room Mansion Suites inside the capitol
complex.
Camarines Sur, of course, has
plenty of tourist attractions, such as the beaches of the Caramoan
Peninsula, the forests of Mount Isarog, Lake Buhi which has the
world’s smallest fish, aside from six waterfalls, 14 rivers, 15
springs, and 12 small lakes.
Aside from tourism, Villafuerte
is developing during a three to five-year period, a 27,000-hectare
Jatropha farm to help meet the country’s need for cheap
alternative energy, a 10,000-hectare abaca farm, and a 100-hectare
mariculture farm.
Watch LRay turn CamSur around.
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