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Baguio celebrates its centennial this year with much fanfare but
with big problems. The invocation of the past is replete with
ceremony and ritual but visions of the future are hazy. The Summer
Capital, every Filipino’s favorite vacation city, is at the
crossroads as it marks its 100th birthday.
The men who planned Baguio did not anticipate
the blight the city is suffering from today. Built as a sanctuary
from the lowland’s heat and tumult for the senior colonial
administrators and ranking civil servants, Baguio today offers not
much respite for visitors and narrowing options for residents. There
are reasons for concern as the centennial celebrations continue.
Uncollected trash on Session Road and in many
public places dramatizes Baguio’s headaches. Pine trees have been
felled in huge numbers, diminishing the environment and spoiling the
city’s beauty. Water and power supplies are under threat. The air
grows stale from pollution; traffic chokes in many places. Slums
have multiplied with unbridled squatting. There are complaints about
one or two places sinking slowly.
Baguio’s success explains much of its
travails. The attraction of the city—life in the cool country,
doing business in the boondocks—has drawn a humanity of
lowlanders, traders and the informal settlers. The original
population of 25,000 has swelled to 300,000, perhaps more. There is
good business to be had from tourism, and the drift toward more
hotels, restaurants, clubs, bed-and-breakfast homes, tourist
amenities and sports facilities continues.
Tourists (they come even in the chilly months)
have helped Baguio’s prosperity. But every resort draws two kinds
of visitors: the responsible ones and those who have little respect
for a city’s history, culture and environment. Baguio has had both
and has suffered, too, from tourism terrorism.
A few years back, Baguio residents were asked to
ponder their future. They were asked the questions: Do you want
Baguio to continue as a tourist capital? Do you prefer a shift to
Baguio as a commercial and trading center? Do you envision Baguio as
an education hub? What is your vision of the city?
The same questions could be put to the city
residents today. Our understanding is that some wish a change in the
city charter. A return to the cleanliness and greenness of Baguio is
a popular choice. More rigorous zoning and urban planning is high on
the priority lists. Others pine for a Metropolitan Baguio, or a
regional authority led by Baguio to include the La Trinidad, Itogon,
Sablan and Tuba (Benguet) communities. Some seek a restriction to
unchecked development and an improvement in the quality of life
apace with becoming prosperity.
We wish the city a greener, more civil and
prosperous future. New Edens may be discovered and promoted, but, in
the national travel book, there is only one Baguio.
Doing business in San Fernando
It’s more difficult to do business in the
Philippines than in most other countries, according to a World Bank
report released the other day. The country scored low in terms of
starting a business, closing a business, paying taxes, protecting
investors and enforcing contracts, among other gauges. Overall,
Manila fell three notches to 144 from 141 last year in a survey of
185 economies.
There must be a hundred lights in this darkness.
Go to San Fernando, Pampanga, for example. The Institute for
Solidarity in Asia, a nonprofit center for responsible
administration, recently announced that San Fernando is the first
local government to have achieved business-friendly status under a
governance scorecard administered by the institute.
San Fernando, according to ISA, has successfully
streamlined business processes, such as the grant of permits and
licenses, improved tax collection and created a multisectoral office
to monitor programs and targets.
On streamlining the business process, “the
city was able to reduce paperwork from six weeks in 2005 to two
hours in 2009, the time it takes to register a business through a
business one-stop shop.
Of 34 local governments that voluntarily joined
the ISA program—and allows themselves to be scrutinized, San
Fernando had completed the last of escalating four stages of the
performance governance system.
ISA works with sectoral leaders, public
officials and institutions to raise professional and ethical
standards, institutionalize a public governance system and develop
centers for training citizens in the exercise of their civic duties.
Since 2005, the institute has administered a performance system that
includes the crafting of a roadmap by the LGU, development of a
scorecard and inclusion in the city’s planning and budgeting,
implementation of the roadmap and the achievement of results. The
scorecard is ISA’s Dr. Jess Estanislao’s translation for
governments of the Harvard Business School’s scorecard system for
corporations.
San Fernando, a first-class component
city, is the capital of Pampanga and the regional administrative
center in Central Luzon. A busy metropolis that hosts a complex of
commercial, industrial and communications businesses, the city is an
educational and tourism center. History and culture enrich its
social fabric at the crossroads of the great central plains.
“The [business-friendly] status [of San
Fernando] will definitely impact the way investors and creditors
will see the city,” the ISA executive director said at a press
conference.
Replicating the San Fernando experience in other
cities and towns will help raise our global competitiveness and
invite more foreign investments to the country. Mayor Oscar
Rodriguez and city hall, businesses and the community should take a
bow.
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