Ombion: Poverty and disorder at sugarlandia’s capital

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

THE capital of Negros sugarlandia was once praised in a Manila-based magazine as the country’s most livable city, citing as main bases the costs of living, accessibility to basic services, and peace and order situation.

Two years ago, Bacolod was chosen as the most developed IT center in region VI.

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In December 2011, Bacolod was once again adjudged as the most business-friendly city in the country.

Well, these are little things that make us proud being a Bacolodnon, the premier of sugarlandia.

But there is a world of difference between being proud and having internal peace. The former gives us a sense of gratification being where we are. The latter gives us a sense of fulfillment and reason for being whatever takes place around us and wherever we are.

There is more to living than being proud. There is no true peace when there is hunger and injustice.

Looking at the social and economic facts in the city one can easily conclude that there is no peace within us and in our midst.

Current trends can only validate the long standing critique of social scientists and progressive organizations that the leadership of the region’s capital city has failed to address its own internal economic and political problems, and in relation to helping solve the prevailing feudal and semi-feudal conditions spurred by the monocrop sugar-based economy of our island.

Colonies of “squatters”, lack of jobs, unstable income, crime wave, exacerbated by the city government’s lack of mass-oriented development paradigm, are just among the manifestations that Bacolod is far from being a developed city.

“Squatting”is rampant. Data from Bacolod Housing Authority revealed that half of Bacolod’s estimated 41,610 households are considered as “squatters”, or those families not owning lots and houses or are living in “extreme danger zones”, and without stable jobs and income.

BHA admitted that the number could have soared to as much as 60 to 65 percent of the city’s population as the 39,921 “squatters”were still from 1997 database, and if the 1.38 percent annual population growth rate of the city and the pattern and rate of migration from Negros rural areas to Bacolod are factored in, the 39,921 “squatters” may have already gone higher compared to its present population of 499,497.

The city has already bought relocation sites but they are not enough. Worse, the “squatters” incidence increases because in-migration continues unabated.

Joblessness worsens. Official city and labor statistics revealed that of the 228,000 total labor force of the city, 74 percent have no stable jobs and incomes and the rate is still growing. The rate of employed is 26 percent only and economic trends show that the prospect is not going any better. Of the 74 percent, 43 percent or 98,700 are underemployed or odd jobbers, and most of whom self-employed or family-based petty business, while 31 percent or 70,664 are unemployed or continue to look for employment. Only 26 percent or 58,636 are employed as regulars, probationary and under renewable job contracts, or with clear employer-employee relationship.

The city government’s stress on the service sector is problematic because it is the sector with the most unstable employment, while the agriculture sector which still constitute the biggest resources and manpower reserves of the city remain largely neglected. The city has 16,945 hectares land area, of which, 9,101 hectares are agricultural, accounting for more than 80 percent of the city’s population.

Dole-out social services. Since 2005, the Leonardia administration has spent millions in various social services. However, a scrutiny of CSSD services which has less than 100 personnel force reveal that much and most went to dole-outs such as relief services, one-time trainings, meetings and conferences, and printing and publications of materials.

More revealing is the fact that CSSD services went mostly to constituents of the political forces and allies of the Mayor and city leadership.
Thus the problem arouse as to how to effectively measure the real impact of these social services because there is no real database of poor in the city.

Class A city with no hospital. The Leonardia administration has until now failed to set up a hospital of its own, and relying almost everything on its excessively manned, poorly equipped City Health Office, housed in a small building.

The City Health Office has been catering mainly to first aid and primary cases, while the rest especially major medical cases are referred to the Bacolod-based Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH).

CLMMRH official sources commented once that the hospital caters to 75-80 percent of its patients from Bacolod City, but lamented that the support of the city government is quite minimal, few dozens of nurses and midwives, and half a dozen of doctors rendering part time services.

Crime’s ebb and flow. One can easily get upset by the crime statistics in Bacolod City Police Office. There has been ebb and flow in crime surge specifically incidents of holdups, robberies, assault on persons, petty crimes and accidents.

Some police officers attribute the problem to city’s lack of police force, or only 473 with a ratio of 1:1,189 for every police to citizens.
According to regional officials, the ideal ratio for a big city like Bacolod is 1:500. Worse, many of police stations don’t have effective facilities like vehicles, state of the art monitoring system, and logistical support.

Some political scientists on the other hand believe that the lack of police force is not the main reason but the grinding poverty stalking the whole sugarlandia causing the increase in the rate of rural-urban migration and thus the commissions of all sorts of crimes.

As the city grows without much employment to offer, thousands of people flowing in to find ‘greener pasture’ end up engaging in illegal activities just to survive.

I have always argued that so long as the vast countryside remain backward, lands and basic resources are undemocratized, productivity low, backward production systems and tools, production relations skewed, social services hardly trickled down the poor’s man table, and majority live in subsistence and want, there is no way that Bacolod will develop and could satisfy the needs of majority of its people.

This should be the challenge that the present officials regardless of their party or political affiliation. Poverty and hunger don’t distinguish political line and affiliation. This are the issues that should make them rise to occasion, not march to oblivion.

This is also the challenge to the next set of aspiring political leaders.
I wish for the day that the people of Bacolod, and those in the island, will elect their leaders that can really live up to their commitment and to the challenge of the times.

They should not only think of how to make every Bacolodnon proud, but everyone who can really say that the city government and people are worth dying for.