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Davao City eyed as retirement haven
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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SubscribeAIMED at making Davao City a retirement haven for the Eaga Region, the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) will forge an agreement with housing, recreational, and medical and healthcare developers and owners to develop an integrated retirement facility in the city.
The move is also considered to attract more retirees to join the PRA program.
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
In a press conference Wednesday at the Royal Mandaya Hotel, Retired General Edgar Aglipay, PRA chair, told reporters that this is one of the strategies the PRA has planned for Davao City, being one of the focal areas of the agency in promoting the country as one of the top destinations of foreign retirees in Asia.
"This (Wednesday) afternoon, I will be meeting with housing, medical and healthcare, and recreational providers to ask them to bond together through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to offer and provide integrated services and facilities for retirees," Aglipay said. "We have to do this not only in Davao, but also in other focal areas in the country identified by our agency so that Philippines will not lose out in this business."
Aside from Davao City, PRA identified Baguio, Clark, Subic, and Cebu as focal areas in the Philippines in which retirement industry should be promoted the most, aside from Metro Manila.
Aglipay claimed that other countries have been offering integrated services in one location to foreign retirees.
"In other countries, they have developed a location wherein retirees can avail of services of a hospital, entertainment, recreation like bars, and others. We don't have that yet. How do we address this is to declare focal areas for the development of integrated services," Aglipay added.
"If we are not ready to provide the services which the retirees' need, then they will not come to us," he added.
Aglipay added there are a total of 20,000 foreign retirees who are now living in the Philippines, of which, 12,000 are staying in Baguio, while the rest are scattered in other parts of the country. He said today, Davao has only around 200 retirees since PRA has promoted the city as a retirement destination of the country. PRA has opened its satellite office in Davao earlier this year.
"Davao has its own advantage. We target to have another 300 enrollees in Davao in within next year," Aglipay asserted, saying that in a span of one month, PRA satellite office at the DTI-Southern Mindanao building, was able to enroll 10 retirees.
It was learned that most of the retirees here in Davao are Chinese nationals, Koreans, and Japanese. Likewise, in the national figure of 20,000 retirees, foreign nationals, who have enrolled in the PRA program, include Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Europeans, and Americans.
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(December 18, 2008 issue)
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Feedback: Your views and reactions
I have heard this idea from
I have heard this idea from a co-passenger at Silkair, from Singapore to Davao flight. An American citizen named Shane Beary told me that surely Mindanao, particularly Davao, is the best retirement haven. He operates a restaurant in Thailand with his wife.
If we want to capture the market, the idea of putting up a hotel with complete amenities is good but we need also to give good education to our citizens especially those in the beaches to take care of the environment so that the people coming to our place will not be discouraged.
Sustainable tourism should be considered to give the people their share in the tourism industry. As an OFW working in KSA, I know a lot of Saudi citizens who want to come to our city. Our manager visits Davao City twice a year.
Davao as a retirement haven
Davao as a retirement haven is a good idea. However, much needs to be done with the city's road infrastructure.
The roads are narrow, lousily constructed, and totally congested. In the event of an emergency, a patient will die waiting for the traffic to ease up.
The presence of traffic lights is the only visible sign of a semblance of traffic management. Other than that, jeepney drivers load and unload passengers in the middle of the road, bicycles and trisikad drivers ride through the highways with reckless abandon, drivers do not observe road courtesy. Davao's traffic is a complete mayhem and absolutely disgusting!
I can't for the life of me imagine how retirees would like to retire in Davao City.
I live in Australia but I am
I live in Australia but I am a dual citizen. My plan is to expand the business that I started in Davao early this year and spend most of my retirement days over there.
My observation is that the traffic chaos is hugely due to the absence of clear traffic rules, lack of traffic signs (eg lines, traffic lights, give way signs), and the drivers' lack of discipline.
One example: pedestrians give way to the vehicles at pedestrian lanes otherwise they get run over as drivers do not seem to understand the rule. This is an indication of the drivers' lack of proper training or the lack of law enforcement.
Unsurprisingly, many drivers say they did not have to undergo training as they only needed to raise the money to buy their driver's license.
Also, it is not unusual to hear drivers say that they always have cash in their pockets to pay to police or LTO officers on the road. The solution to this is to improve traffic signage and public education on traffic rules, and the elimination of corruption in the LTO and police so drivers are required to undergo proper training before they get their license.
Road expansion is probably very difficult due to existing buildings. My suggestion is to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads by eliminating jeepney and bus operators and replacing them with government-owned time-controlled big buses.
These buses will only stop at designated spots and should run in accordance with timetables. The drivers of these buses will not be under pressure to stop anywhere as their income comes from the government. This will reduce traffic and encourage public discipline leading to a more orderly traffic flow.