Bridging the Gap
By Henry F. Funtecha

Trade and Commerce in Iloilo, 1946-1972

From the 1940s to the 1950s, the business activity at the Iloilo Port was not only sluggish but it was at its nadir due to the still more violent labor union disputes which can be traced to the pre-war years. Heavy silting of the Iloilo River during the war and the shortage of dredging machinery in the immediate post-war years closed the waterfront to all shipping and many of the inter-island vessels.

Pressed by the rapid inflation which brought about the price increases on basic commodities, the city's stevedores demanded increased wages through the union, the Federacion Obrera de Filipinas (FOF), and imposed the highest stevedoring charges in the Philippines. This prompted the Visayas Transportation Co. (VISTRANCO), the company involved in the transport of sugar from Negros to Iloilo, to devise lightering procedures to avoid Iloilo's waterfront. Consequently, by late 1947, almost no fertilizer or Negros sugar was handled in Iloilo. When VISTRANCO organized another union, the Consolidated Labor Union of the Philippines (CLUP), and abrogated the pre-war division of labor by denying the FOF work on the waterfront, the latter's president, Jose Ma. Nava, responded with armed violence that a labor war soon erupted in the city punctuated by spectacular incidents of arson, gunplay, murder and threat, therefore intimidating local businessmen who soon began shifting operations to Bacolod and Cebu. It was only after Nava's aligning himself with the guerilla movement in Panay after being repressed by the dominant political faction leaning towards the interest of the rival union, his weakening influence, and arrest, that the violent conflict at the waterfront was finally put to an end.

From 1946 to the 1950s therefore, there was a slackened pace of progress in Iloilo's trade and commerce. The Iloilo port which was the lifeblood of the city became idle. It was claimed that the labor unions were the ones that killed “the goose that laid the golden egg” for Iloilo's trading industry.

All throughout the post-war period until 1966, trade and commerce had been sluggish. The city of Iloilo lost its status as the premier commercial center of Western Visayas right after the end of war. It eventually lost its title as “Queen City of the South” to Cebu City in the east. However, the decade from 1960 to 1970 showed an upward trend for the commerce and trade in Iloilo.

This upward trend was due to the strengthening of the agricultural sector through Gov. Rafael Palmares' keystone policies and programs for the improvement of agricultural production; the enlivening of the cottage industries through the putting up of the NACIDA REGIONAL OFFICE in Iloilo in 1963; the putting up of the Panay Development Authority in 1965; the establishment/re-opening in the province of three more sugar centrals; the improvement of the airport by the late 1960s to the early 1970s; the boost to both inland and marine fisheries with the establishment of Southeast Asia Fisheries Development Corp. (SEAFDEC) in Tigbauan in 1972; the attempt to shift from traditional to non-traditional exports; the continued growth of the banking institutions in the 1970s; and the putting up of major developmental infrastructures not only within the city and the province of Iloilo but also in the whole of Panay island during the said period. Aside from becoming the commercial and trading for Iloilo province, Iloilo City once again resumed its status to be the foremost trade and commercial center for the whole Western Visayas.

Iloilo had always been the commercial center in Panay island. Dubbed to be the “Land of Plenty” since then and even until now, Iloilo has attracted many commercial and industrial investors. It already possesses a relatively sophisticated banking system, adequate labor supply, abundant supply of agricultural raw materials, and a developed import-export trade.

A major dollar earner of the Philippines in general and of Iloilo in particular from the late 1940s to the early 1970s was the exportation of traditional raw materials such as sugar, molasses, copra, coconut oil, and lumber, as well as non-traditional products like semi-processed and processed aqua products.