(UPDATED) TWO more former Tourism Secretaries have added their voices to the growing clamor for working capital loans to be allocated to the struggling tourism industry. They appealed to senator-members of the bicameral conference committee ironing out the details of the proposed Bayanihan 2 Act to ensure their version is followed as against that of the House of Representatives.
In a Facebook post Sunday evening, Rafael Alunan III said he “learned that much needed funds for working capital to assist the country’s beleaguered tourism industry might be diverted from the DOT (Department of Tourism) to TIEZA (Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority),” the infrastructure arm of the DOT.
“The difference is that the DOT has the direct link to the tourism industry,” said Alunan, who was Tourism Secretary from 1991 to 1992. “Tieza’s mandate is to develop the infrastructure needed by the tourism sector. Funds for assistance should be lodged with the DOT, not Tieza,” he underscored. Alunan ran for senator in President Duterte’s slate in 2016 and 2019, and has been described by Duterte as “a thinking guy.”
Alunan’s status post included the letter of appeal to House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano from tourism stakeholders, which endorsed the Senate version of the Bayanihan 2, authored by Senator Sonny Angara. Tagged in the post, Angara commented, “Yes we prefer it goes straight to stakeholders. That’s in the Senate bill.”
Earlier on Sunday, former Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz Araneta said, “As a former Secretary of the Department of Tourism, I am making this fervent appeal to the Senate of the Philippines [to] please listen to the desperate appeal of tourism stakeholders, the small and medium tourism enterprises that are dying and that need to survive this terrible pandemic. You can do this by respecting and abiding by the essence of Bayanihan 2.”
The Senate version appropriates P10 billion for tourism stakeholders in the form of working capital loans through government financial institutions. The House version, however, allocates P10 billion “to finance the programs of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) assisting the recovery of the tourism industry that shall include the provision of tourism infrastructure,” and allots P100 million to finance the training and subsidies for tourist guides.
“The tourism industry needs life support,” said Araneta, who was DOT secretary from 1998 to January 2001. “We do not need to spend for new resorts during a pandemic. Tourism does not need new infrastructure nor does it need to train tour guides at a time like this.” She was also the first Filipina to win the Miss International crown in 1964.
“I pray that during the Bicam the senators can save the tourism industry from collapsing beyond recovery. Will you allow this to happen to an industry that has contributed 12.7 percent to the country’s GDP (gross domestic product)? Moreover, Philippine tourism provides as many as 5.7 million Filipinos a source of decent livelihood,” Araneta asserted.
Last week, former Tourism Secretary Narzalina Lim, the first woman who held the Cabinet post in 1989, also threw her support behind the embattled tourism stakeholders, underscoring that the House version, “is nothing but another shameless and brazen exercise to embed pork barrel in Bayanihan Act 2.”
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. and Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez also urged the bicameral panel to keep the P10-billion allocation for tourism stakeholders’s loans. (See, “Support pours in for tourism sector on P10-billion aid issue,” in the BusinessMirror, Aug. 15, 2020.)
The House version was principally authored by Rep. Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte III, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Michael Defensor, and Jose Antonio Sy-Alvarado.
Villafuerte said last week, on the first day of bicameral meetings, that the House stands pat on its version.
Image credits: Brix Villaruel