For many people who were far from areas devastated by natural calamities, the tragedies in Bohol and in Tacloban about three years ago may now be faint memories.
However, for many of the survivors of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that hit Bohol on October 15, 2013 and Super Typhoon Yolanda, which devastated Tacloban and other parts of Leyte and Samar on November 8 of the same year, the suffering – not just the memories of lost loved ones – continues to this day.
This is because the communities that bore the brunt of destruction have not fully recovered. Normalcy has become a slow and tedious journey.
The Commission on Audit (COA), in a report that was released at the end of 2015, noted the slow pace of rehabilitation in the areas hit by the massive earthquake and super typhoon.
In Bohol, for instance, the COA report said only 12 out of more than 1,000 rehabilitation projects were finished as of end-2014. The projects involved mainly the repair and reconstruction of infrastructure and government facilities.
After the twin disasters, I stressed in my columns the need for active participation of the private sector to help the survivors return more quickly to their normal lives. I urged, in particular, the big businesses in the disaster-hit areas to lead this effort by promptly reopening their stores or resuming operations.
I personally visited the devastated communities, saw the hopelessness on the faces of the survivors, and recognized the positive impact of such a move on their minds so they could move forward with their lives.
This came back to my mind when the Board of Investments (BOI) revived interest on disaster rehabilitation last month. In a memorandum released in August, the BOI said it had included 134 calamity-stricken cities and towns as “least developed areas” (LDA) in the government’s Investment Priorities Plan (IPP).
The 134 cities and municipalities designated as LDAs are located in 14 provinces: Leyte (28 LDAs), Eastern Samar (four), Western Samar (four), Biliran (one), Southern Leyte (one), Iloilo (27) and Capiz (17).
Inclusion in the IPP is designed to make the LDAs attractive to investors by offering incentives like tax deductions.
Under the BOI’s memorandum, projects located in the LDAs will be entitled to pioneer incentives and additional deduction from taxable income equivalent to 100 percent of expenses in the development of necessary and major infrastructure facilities.
I agree that the program could help achieve the Duterte administration’s goal of recovery and rehabilitation of areas affected by calamities.
I believe that encouraging investments in these areas is also in line with the government’s policy of developing industries in the provinces instead of in Metro Manila, so rural communities will receive a bigger share of economic growth.
Metro Manila is already saturated, but the countryside offers a lot of space to host economic zones, commercial establishments and residential projects. This includes idle agricultural lands and other areas where local government units have determined to be better utilized for nonagricultural purposes.
For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.