The year 2011 saw central and northern Luzon suffer from nature’s wrath when strong typhoons triggered widespread flooding that destroyed crops, public infrastructure and private property, and disrupted the lives of the regions’ 19 million residents.
But with the New Year comes hope. Business leaders and officials in Central Luzon, the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera agree that 2012 would bring in investments that are expected to spur local economies and help provinces recover from the impact of disasters.
Most pin their hopes on the government’s road projects that would link the provinces to major urban centers in the regions and Metro Manila. The opening of major shopping malls in the Ilocos and Central Luzon and investments in agriculture modernization and real estate have become other sources of optimism.
Infra development
Victor Ubaldo, assistant director of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) in Central Luzon, said 2012 would be a good year for the region’s economy.
Ubaldo’s forecast is due to an increase in investors’ confidence, a rebound in agricultural production and construction of several major government projects. These, he said, would create jobs in Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales.
The upgrade in the ranking of the Philippines, from 85th to 75th, in the 2011-2012 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report and the anticorruption reforms have boosted the confidence of investors in the government, he said.
A major project set this year is the North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway Connector project worth P20.181 billion. The highway is a 13.4-kilometer, four-lane elevated expressway over the Philippine National Rail right-of-way in Caloocan City to Makati City.
Ubaldo said increased investment funding by the national government on infrastructure, at P182.2 billion, would create jobs.
He said a threat that confronts Central Luzon in 2012 is La Niña, which is characterized by heavy rains, making flood-control measures very important undertakings by local governments.
In the Subic Bay Freeport, officials of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) see good prospects from the interest shown by Chinese and Korean firms to invest in the free port.
SBMA Chair Roberto Garcia said a master tourism plan would be unveiled for the free port this year and they are hoping to turn Subic into a “business process outsourcing (BPO) city.”
In Nueva Ecija, Reynato Arimbuyutan, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) in the province, is hopeful that the approval of the Central Luzon Link Expressway would open up the province to more investments.
The project is a 63.9-km, four-lane expressway that will link Tarlac City and San Jose City in Nueva Ecija.
Arimbuyutan said 2012 is a good year for real estate, retail stores, shopping malls, small-scale and medium industries, information technology, theme parks and resorts in the province.
He said big businesses are expected to be established along the expressway, especially in Zaragoza, Aliaga, Talavera towns and the cities of Muñoz and San Jose.
Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos said the provincial government is upbeat about the agroindustrialization of Nueva Ecija, the country’s rice granary, this year through the province’s P1.85-billion budget.
In Tarlac, public spending is expected to perk up the local economy as construction of major infrastructure projects, like the BalogBalog Dam Project, will start this year.
Vicente Vicmudo, the National Irrigation Administration’s Balog-balog project manager, said the P16-billion project is expected to irrigate 34,410 hectares of farmlands and generate 43.5 megawatts of power.
Tarlac Gov. Victor Yap said Central Luzon would benefit from the continuing public investments in infrastructure such as the highways, toll roads, railways and flood protection projects.
Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado said prospects for the local economy is brighter as the government starts rehabilitating dams, roads, dikes, farms and irrigation facilities following the massive flooding in the province in September and October.
The province’s experience in dealing with the tragedy, he said, has helped them to be better prepared this year.
Agribusiness, tourism
Ilocos Norte has the head start in positioning itself as one of the key growth nodes in the Ilocos region under a five-year regional development plan from 2011 to 2016.
Under the plan, the Ilocos Regional Development Council (RDC) laid down a road map to make the region as the “agribusiness and tourism powerhouse in northern Philippines.”
Leonardo Quitos, Ilocos RDC director, said the plan sets the direction in implementing integrated and coordinated programs of the Ilocos provinces to overturn a declining growth rate from 2007 to 2009.
Ilocos Norte is taking advantage of its proximity to East and Southeast Asian countries as a leverage to establish priority investment areas from agribusiness, agritourism, BPO, logistics and tourism.
In Pangasinan, Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin Lim is hoping for a rebound in the city’s economy this year following calamities and typhoons that hit northern Luzon in 2011.
Lim said 2012 would be a much better year because in the second half of the year the government would start to fund projects in time for the elections next year.
The opening in February of a major shopping mall in Calasiao town is also expected to change the business landscape in central Pangasinan.
The business sector in Cagayan Valley is bullish about the progress that 2012 is expected to bring to the country, spurred by the government’s pledge of a strong support for local industries, said Pepito Fondevilla, PCCI regional governor.
“The strong promotion of local products, through the continuation of the ‘One Town, One Product’ program and the promotion of newly discovered industries that use indigenous materials promise to turn things around for our economy this year,” he said.
Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy III said the province is banking on the operation of a P100-million paper mill project in Cauayan City and the commissioning of a bioethanol plant in San Mariano town to spur the province’s economy.
In the Cordillera, the expansion of the Baguio Ayala Techno Hub at Camp John Hay has been presented as the best new economic prospect for the summer capital.
Arnel Paciano Casanova, president of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, said BPO is a viable investment area for the region.
But mining and the Baguio City Economic Zone, which hosts the Texas Instruments Philippines Inc. (Tipi), remain the natural investment magnets of the upland region, given the good metals prices in the world market, according to the Baguio-Benguet Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. and a briefing paper presented by Neda.
But the region’s poor economic showing in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, which slumped from 2007 to 2009, has led the Cordillera RDC to believe that the final solution to the region’s problems is to be converted into an autonomous region, said Kalinga Gov. Jocel Baac, RDC chair.
Baac said the RDC would pursue an autonomy bill as well as power and forestry projects that would help sustain the region’s watersheds.
Reports from Tonette Orejas, Robert Gonzaga, Jo Martinez-Clemente, Anselmo Roque, Armand Galang and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon; and Cristina Arzadon, Yolanda Sotelo, Melvin Gascon, Villamor Visaya Jr. and Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon