PINCH HITTER
tong2 + francis = migedc
Over the past months in Iloilo City, there was a groundswell of activities touted for Iloilo's economic take off. The city held a Metro Iloilo Guimaras Economic Development Council (MIGEDC) Leaders Summit and Iloilo Investors Forum. The summit and forum were laudable. But these two activities were more of form than substance and had been repetitively done. It can be said these activities should have been done a long time ago.
The slogan of Leaders Summit is aptly correct. Ironically what the summit had accomplished is contra to the slogan. The Leader's summit was suspiciously like a workshop intended for a year ender activity for money to be spent otherwise money not spent would be considered by "funders" as proof of the low absorptive capacity of a project proponent. It is a valid issue to point it out that MIGEDC and its predecessor MIDC (Metro Iloilo Development Council) have yet to transform itself from discussing baseline information and generalities, and having photo opportunities into a body that would address inter towns issues among Iloilo City and the adjoining towns.
More than ten years have passed from the creation of MIDC and not concrete joint collaborative effort emerged from several forum and workshops, except to expand the grouping geographically after periodic lull, which occurred during the time Francis Gentoral found it difficult to find sources of money for the many NGOs under his auspices.
Priorities are very apparent in Iloilo City. There is no need for the minds of Greenspan or a forum like the yearly trek of world leaders and captains of industry in Davos, Switzerland. What is needed is the vision of Lee Kuan Yew and firmness of Deng Hsiao Ping more than forum and workshop. The cliché if you want a work not to be done give it to a committee is true to what the city is doing of meetings, workshops and forum. Throw a good plan to a committee and subject it to a workshop and it will be bastardized by all vested interest.
Iloilo should not only move forward but to leapfrog. But this would not happen if a pure and simple gathering to drum up support for proposed coal-fired power plant is packaged as an Iloilo Investment Forum. An investment and business opportunity forum would have its invitees captains of industries and finance men, and not speakers telling the usual crowds of the Iloilo Business Club and Iloilo Multi-sectoral group of Fanny Uy of the great potential of Iloilo. Worst, the forum had its output a resolution endorsing the coal-fired power plant of one the major sponsors of the forum. No one seems to notice the intellectual dishonesty of the Iloilo Investment Forum and the futility of the many activities under the auspices of MIGEDC for the development and progress of Iloilo.
The in word now is "subprime" and "climate change," yet Iloilo City is engrossed on rearranging its arcane route networks for passenger jeepneys as a major solution to its traffic problem. There is no agreement even in whether we live under MIDC or MIGEDC. When created, MIDC envisioned to harmonize the traffic from the adjoining towns to the city.
Yet a decade and more, first in mind of city officials every time the mess of traffic is discussed is to look at the jeeps from MIDC towns as the culprits. As if the jeepneys and commuters from MIDC towns have no business to be in the city while we have all those high named workshops and summits of Francis Gentoral under the MIGEDC talking of collaboration.
The supra jurisdiction is Metro Iloilo inclusive of the towns of Pavia, Oton, Leganes, Santa Barbara. But the knee jerk reaction to the traffic problem is to limit and reroute the jeepneys coming from Metro Iloilo towns and gave the lucrative route to city jeepneys and make it difficult and confusing to the commuters from these towns. The mantra of Tongtong Plagata of non-interference in the affairs the city by the towns of MIDC could not be reconciled with the avowed goal of Francis Gentoral MIGEDC of collaboration and coordination among local government units and these towns becoming suburbs of the city.
The myopic stance of Tongtong Plagata of noninterference of the affairs of Iloilo City by MIDC towns and the hollowed workshops and forum of Francis Gentoral under the new name of MIGEDC would assure us that the slogans "Iloilo City a premiere city by 2015" and Iloilo the "NEXT BIG THING" (whatever it means), would remain as slogans.