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Who wins in Panglao's Tourism Business?

Very recently, business tax collection system in the municipality of Panglao has drastically changed that resort owners, maybe accustomed to a subjective tax assessment processes, reacted strongly.   The basis of the reaction is simple – tax assessments have significantly increased the amount of tax that they will have to pay, when compared to previous years - and like every taxpayer who is assessed a higher amount of tax, businessmen complained, alleging that the tax base is highly irregular and the system anomalous. The municipal government of Panglao implemented this year the Enhanced Tax Revenue Assessment and Collection System (E-TRACS), a system that automates the assessment and collection of taxes and puts subjective assessments aside and makes tax payment negotiations a thing of the past.   A primary highlight of the system is the elimination of subjective tax assessments because certain parameters are used, and in this case, the most objectionable to businessmen, the u

Invisible Guards

Sunday morning at the Tagbilaran airport, and flight was delayed.   I had the chance to talk to a student of mine who works in the airport for years now.   He brought my attention to this counter near the exit door of the check-in area   that has a wide sign bannering RA 8550 and a collection of pictures of seashells. RA 8550 is no stranger to me. My sister who is a marine biologist and foreshore management specialist is one of its staunchest advocates that even my mother would take extra care in buying fish as these may still be too young to be caught or are spawning or are taken from the sea by fishermen using fine mesh nets. The law provides, among other things, the reconstitution of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the specification of allowable fishing in municipal waters, the power of the state to prescribe non-fishing seasons, and the participation of communities in monitoring of fishery laws. What the wide banner and the counter represents, is the effort o

When Good Service Turns Sour

  My mother is a fan of Lite Shipping. Travelling between Plaridel and Tagbilaran City when two vessels were still plying the route, she always prefers Lite Shipping over Palacio Shipping lines. Reasons? Many. Lite shipping is much cleaner. It is a newer sea craft than Palacio’s. Its crew are much more efficient. It always arrives earlier than the other boat, departing on time, and arriving much earlier. As she goes to Bohol to visit his favourite son every month (as there is no other), I always hear her good comments.   The fact that Lite Shipping’s vessel arrives at 10 in the evening in Tagbilaran from Plaridel after a short stop at Larena makes picking her up much bearable, as compared to Palacio’s that arrives at around 1 to 2 dawn.   This makes me love Lite Shipping too. My family (wife and two kids plus a nanny) went home to Calamba, Misamis Occidental, my hometown, to spend Christmas after almost two years of not being able to visit the place.   The last time we

Crime In (and outside) the News: Who holds the responsibility to protect?

I arrived in Tagbilaran after three weeks of academic theorizing on development and inequality at Brown University.  Several news, unpleasant ones, greeted me, over a breakfast of corned beef and rice.  There was new case of burglary with arson at Paz Pharmacy, located along Gallares Streets. The Bohol Chronicle reported, on its Wednesday edition (June 22), that the pattern was similar to what happened to B and J Computer in May this year. As I am writing this, I am facilitating a workshop in Naic, Cavite.  My wife called me, a few minutes ago that two of our neighbours experienced attempted cases of burglary, resulting to a loss of P1,000 to one of them. I shudder at the thought that Tagbilaran is no longer safe, as I still want to cling to the memory of a not so distant past when roaming the streets was not a problem at all, and robbery and burglary of this scale were never heard of. In 2011 alone, several alarming cases happened. In January, the church of Loboc was burglarized we

Bohol is still poor: is it good news or bad?

For the last three to five years we were made to believe that Bohol indeed leaped out of the poorest provinces. But a new presentation of NSCB , posted in their website in Feb 2011, showed that Bohol, along with Maguindanao, Masbate, Agusan del Sur, Zambo del Norte, Surigao del Norte, is consistently included in the bottom cluster of provinces in 2003, 2006, and 2009. How come this does not make it to the headlines? When I posted the above opening statement in Facebook and when I brought it up with my friends, I got different reactions, from the lyrical to the absurd.  Atty. John Titus Vistal of the Provincial Planning and Development Office called me up to say that this was a result of methods revision on the part of NSCB. PRMF Provincial Director Rosalinda Paredes emailed me and other interested parties regarding the need to bring the discussion up to the table again. One friend however, told me that this is good for Bohol as this becomes a justification for project proposals on an

Questioning Again the Gains of Privatizing Water and Electricity Provision in Bohol

In one book that I recommend to be read by all development workers in the world (Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords), much has been said about privatization. Below are some of those noteworthy passages: “The words ‘privatisation’ and ‘social protection’ have come together with increasing ease. In the early 1990s, in developing countries and in the newly defined ‘transition countries’, the main reform promoted by the international financial institutions was the privatisation of pen sions, with dreams of privatising health care and other aspects of social protection soon afterwards.” (Standing, 2010, pg. 73). “Thus the wave of privatisation, denationalisation,elimination of subsidies of all sorts, budgetary austerity, devaluation,and trade liberalisation initiated a deep social desperation throughout the Third World.”(Leal, 2010, pg. 90). Bohol had its share of this buzzword, especially in the context of utilities, when in December 2000, the Provincial

Mangool Mother's Association: A Tribute on the Occassion of Women's Month

The town of Baclayon in Bohol is famous in the local tourism industry as the home of one of the Philippine’s oldest churches. Both foreign and local tourists stop at its age-old church and the nearby museum that showcase the rich culture and history of the Boholano as a people. Little do they know that a few kilometers from this tourist attraction lies a community whose dream of having safe and accessible potable water has been so elusive in the past years. The sitio of Mangool is part of the rural barangay of San Isidro, located 4 kilometers from the town center. The sitio sits on top of a hill 90 meters above sea level and is the home to 112 residents. It is only accessible through a rough access road that gets very muddy and slippery during rainy days. Livelihood opportunities were so scarce in the sitio with farming as an only option. But farming did not bring in the profits, primarily because crops were dependent on rain and whatever was left of the limited water source.