IGNORE all the derogatory things that you read or hear about Taguig City—that it is a haven of traffickers in illegal drugs and that criminals freely roam the streets and terrorize the citizenry.
That may have been true in the past, but not now.
The statistics do not lie: the city government has reported a 70-percent increase in arrests of drug suspects in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.
Not only that. The city government has also posted a 56-percent drop in the crime rate during the same period.
One of the first things that Taguig City Mayor Lani Cayetano did upon assuming office was to launch a sustained campaign against illegal drugs and crime.
The Taguig City police has made significant headway in fighting the scourge of illegal drugs. They have arrested half of the Top 10 Most Wanted Illegal Drugs Target Personalities in the city. The most wanted drug suspects nabbed by the police are Jackie Abone (No. 2); Richard Silvestre (No. 4); Rawie Castro (No. 5); Isidro Llagas (No. 7); and Mardie Talampas (No. 8). It is, perhaps, only a matter of time before the other suspected big-time drug dealers in the city are rounded up and put behind bars.
Before the recent wave of arrests, the Taguig City police had also collared in previous years several members of a notorious drug syndicate. Those arrested included Joana, Henry and Ely, all surnamed Tinga.
The intensified war against traffickers in illegal drugs and other criminals who had given the city a very bad reputation in the past has turned the situation around and restored law and order in the city.
The stable peace and order situation in Taguig City is the very reason it is now a thriving business hub.
Top corporations are flocking to Bonifacio Global City (BGC). Among those that have relocated to Taguig City are the Philippine offices of Coca-Cola Bottlers, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard and Sony. Several banks—Chinatrust Commercial Bank Corp., Eastwest Bank, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp.—are also there now. The technology provider Smartmatic and Manila Water Co. (MWC) have also established their offices at BGC.
The country’s top financial regulators also plan to move their head offices to Taguig City. These are the Philippine Stock Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Insurance Commission. The Intellectual Property Office and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industries have already transferred to new addresses within the business district. Even the Supreme Court is looking at BGC to put up its chambers.
Leading academic institutions such as the University of the Philippines and the De La Salle University have also announced that they will establish separate campuses at BGC.
If various enterprises, government offices and universities are making a beeline to Taguig City, it is because the city government has spared no effort to attract them with lower taxes, better services, zero tolerance for corruption, and no number coding for vehicles.
In fact, the World Bank has recognized Taguig City as one of the best places in the country in which to do business. In the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business report, Taguig City ranked first among the cities in Metro Manila to have the least number of procedures in putting up a business.
With higher income from the vibrant and dynamic business environment, the Taguig City local government can now afford to provide better social services, such as education and health, to the citizenry, especially the poor.
Finance dept takes correct stand on water rates legal tussle
What the government has agreed to, it should respect.
That’s the position of the Department of Finance (DOF) in the ongoing arbitration process between the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and the two water concessionaires in Metro Manila, Maynilad for the west sector and MWC for the east sector.
The arbitration panel of the Singapore-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has already ruled that the two water concessionaires can make rate adjustments in their respective areas of jurisdiction. The MWSS, however, continues to belligerently defy the ICC order.
The finance department, which oversees the operations of the MWSS, a government-owned and -controlled corporation, disagrees with the position of the regulatory agency. Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima has, in fact, sent two memorandums to Malacañang arguing that there is no basis for the MWSS to ignore the ICC ruling for three reasons.
One, the decisions of the international tribunal are final and executory since mutually agreed upon arbitration is an accepted alternative to expensive and long-drawn court litigation.
Two, it would compel the national government to pay Maynilad over P5 billion in corporate losses since 2013 in keeping with the sovereign guarantee to compensate the concessionaire for whatever financial losses arising from MWSS’s noncompliance with or breach of the original concession agreement signed by both parties in 1997.
And three, it would damage the Philippine government’s credibility before the international community, and jeopardize its investment-generation programs, including its public-private partnership campaign.
“Maynilad may call on the government under the undertaking letters in this specific situation,” Purisima said in his memo. “MWSS’s reading would result in the illogical situation where the MWSS is practically allowed to be in breach of its contractual commitment to observe the standard rates with no recourse for Maynilad.”
The DOF memo further said that the undertaking letters “clearly guarantee against delays in legitimate rate increases and do not foresee recovery of delays over the concession period.”
Purisima then pointed out: “We’re not siding with one or the other. We just want to make sure that what we entered into, we respect.”
Soon after the MWSS-Regulatory Office defied the December 29 ruling of the ICC Appeals Panel for it to grant Maynilad’s rate-adjustment dues in 2013, the concessionaire filed a second arbitration complaint before the Singapore court five months ago seeking P3.44 billion in damages to cover its losses.
The resolution of this controversy is imperative so that Maynilad can carry out improvement and expansion programs to upgrade its service delivery and cover far more consumers across the metro’s west zone.
Another compelling reason for the government to act on the issue is that the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration has warned of the high probability of the current moderate El Niño intensifying into a strong one in the year’s last quarter up to the first quarter of 2016. A prolonged El Niño means less rainfall is expected and water supply to consumers may be adversely affected if water allocation to Metro Manila residents will be further reduced.
For its part, the Climate Prediction Center of the United States-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this year’s El Niño, which began in March and could last for a year, may be one of the strongest ever in the historical record dating back to 1950.
Amid a looming water shortage, the government should realize that the continuing defiance by the MWSS of the water concessionaire’s petition for a reasonable rate adjustment will lead in the long run to less and less water coming out of the taps of consumers.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.