Tuesday, October 02, 2007 ‘Let’s think bigger than airport and seaport’ By Gil Alfredo B. Severino
COUNCILOR Jocelle Batapa-Sigue deplored the direction of the City Government is going especially in the area of employment generation and development of human resources.
Batapa-Sigue stressed that the City Government’s focus is on the peripheral such as the retention of the old airport and soon the seaport takeover, saying, “All these are nationally-managed and we have the least revenue.”
“I would rather see the city being steered towards the development of a climate conducive to the building of a commercial and economic zone,” Sigue said.
“Look, we are not even accredited with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA). With a very good ‘game plan,’ investors will swarm the city and so we can generate more jobs,” Sigue added.
Sigue explained that information technology (IT) comprised only five percent of PEZA and the rest of the 95 percent are various businesses, adding, “People might be mistaken that when we say eco-zone, it is only IT or like call centers.”
Sigue further explained, “Eco-zones can be medical, garments, electronics, tourism and I’m sad that why nobody here is seriously considering an agri eco-zone.”
“I believe that if the City is directed along these lines we could generate more income, more taxes, enabling us to nurture our number one strength, the human resource,” she said.
Sigue stressed, “Why are we not thinking of all these instead of airport retention and seaport takeover? My idea is to retain the old airport land because it is prepared for an eco-zone but if the idea is simply to retain the airport with no game plan at all then I disagree.”
“Look, we talk about airports and seaports but Bacolod does not even have a hospital, technical livelihood and development centers (TLDC), social development centers (SDC) for juvenile delinquency, child protection law, among others,” she added.
“From experience, call centers are here because of our precious human resources, but we still have no direction and serious development of our strengths in people yet,” Sigue further stressed.
