Where is CIPC going?
The Cebu Investment Promotions Center Inc. (CIPC) isn’t completely dependent on the Cebu City government for funding according to its former treasurer Sabino Dapat in a radio interview yesterday morning.
Like any foundation, it also relies on contributions from generous donors for its mission of marketing Cebu.
“We also receive funding from Mandaue City,” Dapat told dyAB.
His comments help shed light on Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s warning to donors to avoid giving to the CIPC, after five trustees quit last June 30 for reasons not made completely clear but had all the signs of the gentlemen deciding to leave a room before they get caught in heavy crossfire.
The trustees were respected names in Cebu business. They included former presidents of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry like Dapat, and the previous board chairman Geronimo Sta. Ana.
Last we heard, managing director Joel Yu was arranging new elections to replace the trustees.
So is the CIPC, widely credited as a brainchild of former mayor Tomas Osmeña, who was one of its original incorporators, really a sinking ship?
Should Mayor Michael Rama bother himself with it, after withholding City Hall subsidy, about P5 million this year?
What has to be clarified first is the mission of CIPC.
Is it the narrow target of marketing the South Road Properties (SRP), the 300-hectare legacy project of Osmeña that had to be relinquished to his rival, Mike Rama?
Or is it to promote Cebu – the whole island in the Pacific and not just the city – to investors?
We hope it is the second one, it’s original purpose, that will prevail amid the toxic personality-oriented politics that often stymies Cebu City governance.
Keeping the bigger picture in mind is important. It reframes the question from “Is the CIPC a sinking ship?” to “Where is the CIPC going?”
It would indeed be healthier for CIPC and Mayor Rama to go separate ways, even as it is possible for both to coexist. Mayor Rama believes he can successfully market the SRP his way with his own team without CIPC or Joel Yu, whose loyalty he will always doubt. So be it.
The other week, the center signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the University of San Carlos School of Business and Economics to conduct research into Cebu’s sunrise industries – Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and cement manufacturing – as well as the state of Cebu’s competitiveness as viewed by locators of the Philippine Export Zone Authority.
That doesn’t sound like a think-tank ready to close shop. The days of a fat subsidy from City Hall are over. The CIPC will have to chart directions on its own, with or without an active role of its founder, former congressman Tomas Osmeña.
