South Road Properties
An open letter to Cebu’s political leaders, present and future
by Sabino R. Dapat
A concerned Cebuano
With all the conundrum of the coming elections, we continue to hear about the squabble of local officials of Cebu City over the budget and the South Road Properties (SRP) – as if the economic growth of Cebu will rise and fall because of what they all think. What a sorry state.
We have sad state of slow movement of people, goods and services in Cebu. And at the center of all this is Metro Cebu and the lack of respectable road infrastructure and a mass transit system throughout Cebu. Unless the local government units, especially those in Metro Cebu, unite and join hands for the good of Cebu, we will not see an immediate solution to our infrastructure needs.
I have yet to see a government unit that is successful in business, especially in real estate development. So why all these squabbles about the SRP?
For many years, the SRP, because of the large foreign loan secured to put up the reclamation project, was a pain in the neck for Cebuano taxpayers. Social services had to be sacrificed because a good part of the city’s tax collections were used in servicing the loan. Now that we have the money, why not pay the remaining balance of the loan?
I would be very happy to hear somebody tell me that I am wrong in my estimates that loan servicing was at least P500 million annually for many years. It could even be more than that amount at one time.
I am not saying that the SRP is a mistake, because it is not. As a matter of fact, it is a blessing for Cebu. But let’s have it managed by independent industry experts whose business is in real property development. Let’s follow the business model of the development of Fort Bonifacio in Metro Manila.
Survey after survey has told us that Cebu is losing its competitive edge over a number of other provinces in the Philippines. We used to say that Cebu can be the next Singapore. And why not?
But how can we aspire to be that when there is near-chaos in city streets and even in road corridors going to the north and south of Cebu province?
I think there are funding agencies like JICA and USAID which are willing to fund an effort to mount a Cebu Economic Development Summit using independent economic development experts to produce a short-term as well as long-term road map for Cebu, with the full commitment and cooperation of all political leaders to follow it.
What is at stake is the economic sustainability of Cebu. Without respectable infrastructure, Cebu’s economic growth in exports, tourism and ICT-aided businesses and industries will reach a saturation point much sooner that Cebu’s capacity for development.
(Editor’s Note: Ben Dapat does consultancy work for business and finance management and is a former president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI). He is also vice chairman of the Cebu Citizens-Press Council.)