BIMBO CABIDOG
The people of Eastern Visayas inhabit a land rich in natural
resources. The region has a vast land area. Samar alone is the third largest
island of the Philippine archipelago. All three major land masses have sizeable
portions of alluvial soil and vegetative covers replete with various forest
products. The mantle beneath contains precious minerals from chrome to copper, nickel
and gold.
It is apparently a great irony that despite the trove of
natural wealth complemented by a highly literate and talented populace, Eastern
Visayas would yet place third among the poorest regions in the country. Undeniably,
EV’s per capita Gross Regional Domestic Product bears this official categorization
out. The reality has always accompanied it even up to recent years.
The question now is: how long will the region languish in this
state? What are its development prospects over the near or far future?
Lay observers as well as experts find much reason to be optimistic
in what they see today. The Eastern Visayas projects a community about to break
away from the past. The region is undoubtedly several degrees different now than
two decades ago. Physical change shows them out. But economic figures also tell
of a region that has improved a lot in productivity and performance.
Woes from burgeoning urban sprawls, newfound prosperity easily
translating to acquisitions like the buying of cars, and rapid modernization
are likewise catching up. Vehicular traffic in thoroughfares, for one, has
become an emerging headache. For sure, the volume of private vehicles as well
as PUVs on roads has dramatically increased from, say, ten years ago.
Region 8’s economy grew fastest in 2016, besting the other
17 regions, and exceeding even the growth rate posted by the National Capital Region
and the national average. The Philippine Statistics Authority recorded the
Gross Regional Domestic Product to have surged by 12.4 percent in the said year
outpacing the NCR’s growth rate of 7.5 percent and the national average’s 6.9
percent.
A strong performance by the industry sector boosted the
record growth of the GRDP. Production here went up by 20.2 percent accounting
for 44.3 percent of the local economy. Construction, one of the industry’s
vital subsectors, grew by a most impressive 44.5 percent. Manufacturing grew by
19.6 percent. Construction and manufacturing carried the region’s upsurge.
A bank analyst attributed the performance to the
rehabilitation efforts that have been going on since the destruction wrought by
Supertyphoon Yolanda. They had just about picked up around this time. But being
the case, there was also fear that the record growth may not be sustained. Once
the post-Yolanda rebuilding tapers, the Eastern Visayas may just have nothing
anymore to fuel further progress. Declining growth can supersede the productivity
boom and dampen its psychological boost.
The case at once became true with the dip in GRDP, which
only grew by 1.8 percent, the following year. By 2018, this would only recover
by 5.9 percent. What saved the disheartening fall was the services sector. While
industrial performance slowed, services accelerated by 10.5 percent, accounting
for 44.4 percent of the regional economy. They also employed about 53 percent
of the labor force.
An ocular survey would show the figures in concrete. The rise
of the services sector owed to the proliferation of retail outlets, hotels,
restaurants and food store chains which are readily seen around the boom cities
and towns. The GRDP growth would also stem from the increase in the volume of
flights and airline passengers, the former by 28 percent and the latter by 25
percent.
In another breadth, the weight of annual domestic cargo and
cargo throughput rose by almost 22 percent. This indicated the invigoration of trade.
But agriculture was a let-down. While industrial firms absorbed only 15 percent
of the labor force, their output would be eight times more than that of agriculture
which accounted for 31.5 percent of the labor force. The sector declined to 0.5
percent in 2018, down from 1.0 growth in 2017.
The recorded ups and downs show yet an unstable status. Eastern
Visayas had a long way to go, and there was much left to be desired. Its per
capita RGDP of PhP37,121 in 2017 and PhP38,598 in 2018 still fell way below the
national average of PhP86,270. These presented third lowest in the country.
Bright Scenarios
What scenarios offer optimistic prospects on the region’s socio-economic
development?
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in an economic assessment
nationwide reported that Eastern Visayas, first and foremost looks into an
influx of tourists, a host of them on high-end expeditions of cruise ships going
to such exquisite destinations as Limasawa, Capul, Kalanggaman and Cuatro Islas.
The region also expects thousands of guests to come and take part in the celebration
of the Leyte Landing Anniversary every year.
The BSP further reports that the region sees new investments,
for instance, in the construction of hotels, banks and fast food chains. These generate
revenues and jobs. The posh Summit Hotel has been newly built in Tacloban City and
begun operation. The franchise mall of SM Prime Holdings Inc. in Ormoc City also
has finished construction and opened.
The 7-Eleven convenience store chain has come to Ormoc, Palo
and Tacloban depicting a rosy picture of the regional market base for retail of
its kind. The promising market sets the stage for the rise of more micro-,
small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
The proposed establishment of the Leyte Ecological
Industrial Zone (LEIZ) is at the pre-feasibility study stage. The impact
project advances rural industrialization, adopts and intensifies industry
clustering, and introduces competitive as well as resilient industries.
In IT, guest hosting services, fast food and retail, the
region is creating business models unimagined twenty years ago. Though
initially hesitating and sputtering, these new engines of growth have set Eastern
Visayas on a dynamic and vibrant course of development.
The bright scenarios could however prove illusory under the
current situation. All these have slammed into the COVID 19 pandemic and drift
in turbulent straits after five months of economically strangulating lockdowns.
Now, with an open-ended crisis in public health getting much worse than better,
everything has become uncertain.