By ERWIN ‘AMBO’ DELILAN
BUSINESSMEN in Bacolod City can now heave a sigh of relief. Mayor Bing Leonardia on April 9 bared the city’s comprehensive relief package for businesses affected by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the last two years.
Those to be granted relief from payment of their business taxes, including Mayor’s Permit covering fiscal years of 2020 and 2021, are thousands of micro, small and medium enterprises operating the city. Such is geared towards flexi (flexible) tax payment options for the benefit of the city’s businesses.
So simple! Yet this is a “meaningful sacrifice” on the part of the city, considering that tax is the “lifeblood” of the government. Stressed Mayor Bing, however, “We want to keep our businesses afloat amidst uncertainties and challenges brought about by COVID-19.”
“So, it’s a welcome development for the business sector in the city,” responded Frank Carbon, executive director of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI).
This is one splendid idea worthy of exaltation, he stressed, too.
But Carbon said it’s better if the city can also extend flexi options for real property tax payment.
City Treasurer Arlene Memoria said she welcomes everyone’s suggestion(s).
“For related concerns and other inquiries,” added Memoria,“they (businessmen) may visit the Treasurer’s Office.”
What an assurance leading to a win-win solution hence.
CANDID ADMISSION
Sans pretension, Carbon said majority of Bacolod’s businessmen – from the smallest to the biggest – really need help. Now na! It’s a candid admission relatable to everyone. Everybody knows how COVID-19 struck the world. It stunned everyone – rich or poor.
Aside from people dying, global markets were also disrupted, causing millions of people to lose jobs.
“Indi lahug-lahog ang epekto sang COVID-19 sa negosyo,” Carbon underscored.
That’s why groups of businessmen across the country rally for government’s immediate support for them to recover or restart anew.
Good to note, said Carbon, that the Philippine government through Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, already laid down some of the considerable plans how to aid the country’s businessmen now that COVID-19 continues to lay low.
However, experts say these plans might not be sufficient to address the fast-changing variables presented by COVID-19.
NO COLOR-CODING
But Bacolod created its own generic initiative dubbed as “Ipadayon ang Negosyo kag Trabaho”.
And such is part of the city’s economic recovery plan (ERP).
Focus of the program: Help all businesses in the city recover faster!
“I am here as your mayor, and I’ll be doing everything to help you at all cost with no (political) color-coding!” the mayor told the Bacolod’s bizmen.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bacolod, on record, has a total of 25,627 registered businesses in 2019. Then, it plunged to 22,489 in 2020, and to only 21,234 last year.
Now, that Bacolod had already been deescalated to Alert Level 1 (COVID-19 status), Mayor Bing wants to veer anew businesses in the city back on the right track. In doing so, the mayor believes thousands of Bacolodnons will be having job(s) again. With this, he can also uplift everyone’s spirit and dignity.
He cited the “Parable of the Lost Sheep” as a way in realizing his immense desire to help the city’s businessmen, and the thousands of Bacolodnons who were rendered jobless due to COVID-19, so, no one will be left behind.
Too, he wants to make true or give justice to the city’s very recent accolades (at the height of the pandemic):
* Most Business-Friendly Highly Urbanized City Outside of the National Capital Region by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI).
* Most Competitive Highly Urbanized City in Western Visayas by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
In 2020, Bacolod’s top investors included the Sy-led Smile Residences, Park Inn and SM Prime Holdings, Inc. with a combined seed investment of more than P1.6 billion and the Villars’ Prime Water Infrastructure Corp (Prime Water) with P98-M capital outlay.
Just recently, Cebu Landmaster, Inc. (CLI) also broke ground for another P1.8-billion investment in the city.
CLI, a five-year-old real estate developer in the city, will be building, this time, a first-class condo project in the city.
Such project will complete company’s P8-billion total earmarked investment in the city, said Jose Franco Soberano, CLI’s executive vice president chief operation officer (COO).
Bacolod currently earns more than P1 billion in revenues from the local sources. And to entice more, it’s now offering a newest business package to would-be investors.
In a minimum of five years, investors may enjoy incentives which include exemption(s) from building permit fees, business sales taxes, among other fees and charges.
‘SMILE, YOU’RE IN BACOLOD’
Also topping the mayor’s list to be aided as soon as possible (ASAP) with utmost consideration(s) are the city’s tourism front runners. These include the hotels, inns, pension houses, restaurants, simple eateries, tour and travel agencies, among others.
With all the lockdowns, border controls and travel restrictions due to COVID-19, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) reported more than 200 million tourism jobs around the globe were at risk. So, part of the tourism recovery plan of Bacolod is the return of the world-renowned MassKara Festival this coming October.
After two years of hiatus, the mayor promises a grandiose reoccurrence of one of the city’s tourism gems.
“This coming October, we will give you the best MassKara (Festival) ever,” he declared in front of the “Padayon ang Negosyo kag Trabaho” launching participants. “We will get organized early. We will strive to stage a seamless festival worth remembering.”
MassKara Festival is known to be one of the top tourism revenue generators for Bacolod. And, so, the city also launched its newest tourism tagline: “Smile, you’re in Bacolod!”
‘FALLOW LAND’
The city’s aspiration together with the local businesses to “recover as one” may not be perfect in the process. But with the essence of a meaningful sacrifice aimed at bringing the city’s businesses back anew to its right orb, Mayor Bing with the rest of the city officials, for sure, won’t be a failure.
What he’s doing now is (really) in congruence with that of American management consultant Gary Hamel’s belief that “a noble purpose inspires sacrifice, stimulates innovations and encourages perseverance.” And such conviction is no ordinary since Hamel’s one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He (Hamel) means what he says.
Most-of-all, it can also be twigged from Mayor Bing’s daily actuations and pronouncements his “itchiness” to exert all the viable efforts not to let Bacolod be a “fallow land” after COVID-19.
Rather, the mayor, at all cost, still wants to retain the “fertility of business” in the city for everyone’s sake – kinda a mission statement worthy of public empathies./PN
