Headlines, Bylines and Datelines

 By Jesus F. Llanto    

October 9, 2008–Local government units should focus on five key sectors to become competitive tourism destinations, an expert on tourism told local officials Wednesday.

During the 2008 Local Government Unit Summit held in Makati City, Samie Lim, vice chair of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said that to develop a strong tourism industry, policies and investments must focus on the five A’s of tourism—arrival, access, accommodations, attractions, and activities.

Lim, who was behind the PCCI’s BizTour5 program that aims to develop private sector initiated tourism programs, said there should be available budget airlines, and chartered planes, cruise liners and ferries to accommodate the arriving tourists. He added that there is a need to develop travel agencies, tour guiding businesses, and world-class airports and seaports.

Investments, he said, should also be poured to tourism infrastructures like roads, ports, energy, telecommunication facilities and sewerage system.

To develop the accommodations needed by the industry, Lim said the country must follow the model of Malaysia.

“Malaysia created a chain of hotels in every major province,” he said adding that these hotels were used not only as for tourist accommodations but also as venues for regional and local conferences.

LGUs should also try to develop historical, cultural and heritage sites and build parks, museums and camping sites, and it must offer sports and recreation activities.

The influx of tourists, Lim added, will help boost the growth of shopping malls, medical tourism facilities, retirement homes, spa and resorts, casino-hotels and convention centers.
(abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

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By Jesus F. Llanto

October 8,2008-Local government units (LGUs) should improve their competitiveness to attract more investments and to develop their local economy, local officials and private sector representatives said in a LGU summit held Wednesday in Makati City.

Speaking at the 2008 Local Government Code Anniversary Conference, government officials and private sector representatives said improving the competitiveness at the local level and developing a strong local economy can help the country cope with the effects of the global economic slowdown.

“Harnessing LGU competitiveness is important in mitigating the effects of economic crisis,” said Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno in a statement read by DILG undersecretary Austere Panadero.

Puno said the 17 years of the implementation of the Local Government Code has enabled the LGUs to increase their contribution to the national economy. “The Local Government Code (LGC) is instrumental in raising the local economic development and the growth of cities.”

The LGC, which was enacted 17 years ago, devolves some functions from the national government, like taxation, registration of business to local government units—provinces , cities, municipalities and barangays

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Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/ShariffKab.jpg/300px-ShariffKab.jpg

By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
    
Thursday, 17 July 2008–Local officials in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) warned Thursday that the Supreme Court (SC) decision voiding the creation of Shariff Kabunsuan province by the regional legislature would cause leadership problem and unemployment in the province.

According to local officials interviewed by abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak, the tribunal’s decision will cause some of the elected officials and government employees in Shariff Kabunsuan to lose their jobs since the province will be reverted to Maguindanao, its mother province.

The High Tribunal, voting 8-6, voided a law enacted by the ARMM’s lawmaking body –the Regional Legislative Assembly (RLA)– in August 2006 that established Shariff Kabunsuan. It nullified Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act 201, which created the province by carving out eight municipalities from the first legislative district of Maguindanao and was ratified in a plebiscite in October 2006.

The SC argued that since the creation of provinces and cities require the creation of legislative districts, and only Congress—not regional and local bodies—can create or reapportion legislative districts—the creation of Shariff Kabunsuan province by the RLA was against the Constitution.

The resolution reduces the number of provinces in ARMM to five. ARMM is composed of Maguindanao, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Lanao del Sur, Basilan (excluding Isabela City) and the city of Marawi .

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By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
    
Wednesday, July16,, 2008–The Supreme Court has declared the creation of the province of Shariff Kabunsuan in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao void and ruled that the power of ARMM’s legislature to create provinces and cities is unconstitutional.

http://uberpedia.org/wiki/Shariff_Kabunsuan

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

The SC, in an 8-6 vote, declared void Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act 201, which created the province of Shariff Kabunsuan, which was carved out of Maguindanao province.

“Only Congress can create provinces and cities because the creation of provinces and cities necessarily includes the creation of legislative districts,” the 33-page decision penned by Justice Antonio Carpio reads.

The SC ruling said that creation of province or a city “inherently involves the power to create a legislative district.”  Creating a province or a city without creating a legislative district, the decision said, is unconstitutional because the Constitution mandates that a province or a city with at least 250,000 inhabitants is entitled to at least one representative.

The ruling said that only Congress can create or reapportion a legislative district. “Congress exercises these powers through a law that the Congress itself enacts and not through a law that a regional or local legislative bodies enact.”

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By Jesus F. Llanto
Newsbreak, Researcher
   
Tuesday, 08 July 2008–Cities that have experienced significant cuts in their revenue shares starting this year due to the creation of new cities are likely to lose their competitiveness and, as a consequence, miss opportunities to attract investments.

This was the opinion expressed by local governance experts and local officials at the recent launch of the 2007 Philippine Cities Competitiveness Report (PCCR) of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati City.

Source:www.davaocity.gov.ph

Done every other year, it was the fifth time that the AIM measured the business-friendliness of select cities in terms of infrastructure, cost of doing business, dynamism of the local economy, human resources and training, responsiveness of the LGUs to business needs, and quality of life.

The study classified this year 90 cities into three categories: Metro cities, or those comprising metropolitan areas in Manila, Davao, and Cebu; mid-sized cities, or non-Metro cities with population more than 200,000 residents; and small-sized cities, or those with less than 200,000 residents.

Wholesale conversion

Experts and local officials said the almost wholesale conversion of municipalities into cities in the past two years has reduced the old cities’ share in national taxes or the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), which is used by LGUs to finance their operation and deliver basic services.

The direct effects of less IRA on infrastructure development, and consequently on the cities’ general competitiveness, may show in the next round of surveys to be conducted by the AIM Policy Center. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)

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July 4,2008-Most provinces miss their potentials for development because they plan programs and operations without consideration of sectoral concerns, the budget, and the plans of the national and municipal governments that they are supposed to complement.

An expert in urban and regional planning said in a recent conference in Quezon City that the low capabilities of provincial planning and development offices (PPDO) result in poor plans that have little impact on local development.

Benjamin Cariño, former dean of the University of the Philippines School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP), said most of rank and file personnel in PPDOs have little experience in planning.

“Most provincial planning development coordinators appear qualified as far as education and experience are concerned. A major constraint, however, is that majority of PPDO technical personnel lack formal planning expertise, especially among plantilla staff,” he said. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)

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By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak

May 27, 2008–Major cities in the Philippines generally take longer to issue business-related permits and licenses compared to most cities in the world, thus constraining their growth and competitiveness, a recent study shows.

Twenty-one cities in the country are able to authorize numerous and varying procedures in starting businesses in their jurisdictions because, according to a private sector representative, they were given “too much autonomy” under the Local Government Code of 1991.

A representative to the government-created National Competitiveness Council suggested then that some of the taxation powers of local government units (LGUs) be reverted to the national government.

In a study conducted by the International Finance Corp. (IFC) and the World Bank on the ease of doing business in cities worldwide, the Philippines ranked 133rd out of 178 countries.

‘Redundant, outdated’

Dealing with a Philippine city to start a business takes an average of 18 procedures and 35 days and costs 27 percent of the income per capita, according to the study. The number of procedures is only two less than the figure for Equatorial Guinea, the country with most procedures to start a business.

“Cities should cut down on unnecessary, redundant, and outdated procedures, and they should take a look at all the procedures that their customers have to go through,” said Vincent Lazatin, executive director of the Transparency and Accountability Network, during the presentation Monday of the Doing Business in the Philippines 2008 study at Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)

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RELATED STORY:
LGUs urged to cut red tape

Photo Credit: www.en.wikipilipinas.org

By Jesus F. Llanto

May 16, 2008-A new municipality has been created in the province of Basilan, cementing the reputation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as the region that most frequently fragment existing local government units (LGU), usually despite their economic non-viability.

A regional lawmaker defended the creation of numerous LGUs, saying it helps prevent clan wars because political families are given their respective turfs, but made guarantees that no more LGUs will be created in the coming years, at least in Basilan.

The town of Tabuan-Lasa was carved out of Sumisip, a third-class municipality. Tabuan-Lasa is composed of 12 barangays—Babag, Balanting, Boloh-Boloh, Bukut-Umus, Kaumpurnah, Lanawan, Pisak-pisak, Saluping, Suligan, Sulloh, Tambulig Buton, and Tong-Umos.

It was created through Muslim Mindanao Act No. (MMA) 187, which was ratified in a plebiscite last March 29. Its creation brings the number of municipalities in Basilan to 11 and reduces the number of barangays in Sumisip, its mother municipality, from 41 to 29. 

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By Jesus Llanto
Newsbreak, Researcher

April 22, 2008-A big majority of current provincial governors are scions of political families, according to a survey conducted by Newsbreak, representing little diversion from the political profiles of past batches of governors.

Newsbreak’s survey, however, showed an encouraging trend of these political scions having diverse professional backgrounds compared to the from-college-to-politics path that many members of political dynasties had been traditionally known to take.

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Sectoral groups, government officials and individuals supporting the administration of President Arroyo have spent at least P5 million in advertisements in three major broadsheets over the past three weeks.

Based on Newsbreak’s calculations, supporters of the Arroyo administration forked out P5.121 million for advertisements in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine Star, and the Manila Bulletin from February 16-March 10, 2008.

These advertisements have commonly expressed confidence in Arroyo’s leadership and called for sobriety in the wake of the National Broadband Network (NBN) corruption scandal. >(abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)

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