WHY IS CEBU CITY LAGGING?

Marina N. Saldaña, National Competitiveness Council program officer, shares survey findings in a briefing for businessmen, the academe and government representatives at the Harolds Hotel in Cebu City.

SWS, business surveys  unveil surprising results on competitiveness, the fight against corruption

It’s hard to believe but Cebu City, the second largest urban center in the country, is not among the top ten cities identified in a national survey of competitiveness.
It ranked only 57 in  a total of 122 cities.

A separate 2013 survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) also shows declining levels of satisfaction among local businessmen who were asked how they viewed the “sincerity” of Cebu City Hall’s fight against corruption.

From 2009 to 2013, the perception of the respondents kept going lower.

These findings were unveiled yesterday in a forum of businessmen, the academe and government agencies at Harold’s Hotel in Cebu City.

The omission of Cebu City was partly explained by Marina Saldaña, program officer of the National Competitivenes Council (NCC) as due to lack of data submitted  by local officials when the survey was conducted.  Typically the request for data was sent to the city planning officer.

The top five cities in “overall competitiveness” were identified as Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, San Fernando City in Pampanga, Butuan City in Agusan del Norte and Bacolod city based on three “pillars” of economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure.

Asked later about the data gaps, City Mayor Michael Rama, who was in Manila, told Cebu Daily News by phone that he would look into the reasons for the apparent oversight.

“They should establish better  contact, collaboration.  They should first coordinate with the mayor.  Then the mayor will conduct meetings so proper data will be given,” he said.
Rama, who was reelected in 2013,  started his first term as mayor in 2010.

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Philip Tan, president of the Mandaue City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who was present in the briefing, said he was “more interested” in how Cebu stacks up against “other international cities in more similar situation like Vietnam.”

“We should not just compare cities within ourselves.  We should talk about the global community,” he said.

He said that Cebu is better off than other cities in terms of investments and has one of the highest growth rates but “just because we failed to submit (data), it put us in a tight spot.”
The 2013 Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI) covered  total of 122 cities and 163 first class municipalities.

Within cities of Central Visayas, Cebu ranked the highest (57) followed by Mandaue (83), Naga (94), Dumaguete (97) and Lapu-Lapu (99).

For the municipalities, the most competitive in the region was Balamban in Cebu (93), Canlaon in Negros Oriental (94), and Consolacion and Liloan in Cebu (118 and 119).
NCC program officer Saldaña explained that most LGUs from the region were unable to submit documents needed for the study and that NCC didn’t want to force them.
“We want it to be voluntary on the part of the LGUs,” she added.
COOPERATION ASSURED
Another round of data gathering is being done for a 2014 survey, which, this time Mayor Rama said  “there will be no problem with cooperation.”
He said Cebu City has already been recognized by other entities here and abroad for its high performance in the BPO industry, as a retirement and investment destination, a “liveable city” and an e-governance awardee.
“It’s garbage in, garbage out. If there is no proper information and data gathering, the output will be distorted. They should compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges properly so it will end up with reasonable and reflective results,” the mayor told CDN.
Saldaña said they are now strengthening encouraging LGUs to participate in the CMCI study.  Compared to the “lukewarm” reponse before, she said LGUs now are “willing to engage.”
Results of the next survey will be released later this year before the President delivers his State of the Nation Address.
The NCC is a public-private sector body that helps in policy reforms and performance monitoring. In 2012, Regional  Competitiveness Committees (RCC) were formed to track local indicators.
CORRUPTION SURVEY
Another surprise appeared in separate survey results of the SWS which showed a drop in satisfaction levels of businessmen regarding the Cebu city government’s fight against corruption from 2009 to 2013.
Davao City outperformed Cebu City in this field, showing the strongest positive perceptions toward their city’s anti-graft campaign over the same three-year period.
These were among several results of the 2013 Enterprise Survey on Corruption by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) presented by president Mahar Mangahas.
In 2009, Cebu City got a net sincerity score of 51 percent but this declined in 2012 to a score of 34 and further down to 33 in 2013.
No clear explanations for this could be drawn from the survey, which measures perceptions of respondents.
Net sincerity was defined as  “the percentage of respondents calling them (city government) sincere minus the percentage calling them insincere.”
Sought for his comment later, Mayor Rama, who was not present in the briefing, could only say, “basta and mayor dili corrupt.”  (What matters is that the mayor is not corrupt.)
Cebu City still ranked fourth among the seven sample areas or cities where the survey was conducted.
Davao city had the highest net sincerity score of 67 followed by Iloilo City with 41 and Tagaytay City with 35.
Cities that scored lower than Cebu City were Cagayan de Oro and Angeles Cities with 30. The lowest score was made by Makati City with negative 5.
Cebu was among seven areas for the SWS survey where 100 businessmen were interviewed. The same number of respondents were taken from the other five cities except for NCR wherein 351 businessmen were interviewed.
A total of 951 respondents from small, medium and large businesses were interviewed. The study ran from July 31 to November 29 last year.
On a national scale, SWS survey results also showed that more enterprises saw “a lot” of corruption in the public sector. Fifty six of the respondents said they saw a lot  of corruption in the government “a little setback” as Mangahas described, compared to the all time record low results of 43 percent in 2012.
“If you can see, 56 percent is still low compared to all the other previous years wherein the percentage (of enterprises seeing a lot of corruption in government) has never been below 60 percent in 2000,” Mangahas said.
The 2013 Survey of Enterprises on Corruption is the 11th in a series of surveys conducted by the SWS since 2000.