Regenerating the Economy
Bioregional planning
By Nereo C. Lujan
PLANNING offices are regular features of provinces, cities and municipalities in the Philippines. These offices are mandated to chart the growth of their respective local governments and at the same time provide contingencies during crisis. But there are development issues that straddle across boundaries, giving birth to regional planning to effectively address [...]
Transferring city hall could ‘kill’ Calle Real
ILOILO CITY – The city government is trying to revive the once-famous Calle Real, but its plan to take the city hall away from the downtown area is threatening to derail its own efforts, and could in fact lead to the death of the old and ailing central business district here.
The already sluggish business activities [...]
Streamlining improves city business climate
PROCESSING of business permits and related documents at the Iloilo City Hall improved a lot, according to the assessment report of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
The improvement was attributed to the implementation of the business permit and licensing system (BPLS) streamlining supported by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the GTZ, both of [...]
Knowledge economy 101
SEOUL—When you give something a name, you empower it. And so, they’ve given it a name—knowledge economy or knowledge-based economy. In layman’s terms, knowledge economy (KE) means using knowledge to create wealth. Wealth isn’t a bad word if it means quality life, not just for a few, but for all.
Representatives from six countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, [...]
‘Malling’ consumes shoppers in the Philippines
THE Philippines has three of the world’s 10 largest shopping centers, two of them in the capital, Manila. Scores of others, ranging from modern glass and steel structures to older, fading buildings, dot cities across the archipelago.
Although over 40 percent of the country’s 90 million people live on $2 or less per day, malls here [...]
Rehab or Perish
By Ben Jimena
THESE DAYS, when you go around Iloilo City, most likely you would not miss the dumps along the road which just pile up day after day and the smell that lingers, becoming more putrid every time rains come. Of course, the garbage and lumps of earth by the road get collected regularly but [...]
The Evolution of the Jeepney and Transit in Metro Iloilo
By Ian Malczewski
EARLY every morning, after the roosters’ shrill call, a creature rises in Metro Iloilo, snarling, burping, and chewing the earth as its crawls. With a skeleton of steel and a heart that pumps oil, it carries people in its belly, shaking them from side to side. This creature is the jeepney, a mode [...]
Urban development continues to attract squatters
ECONOMIC developments can attract squatters looking for “easy money” in a progressive urban center. And with the threat of dislocation is their hope that they will consequently be fortunate to be given relocation sites.
Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office (ICUPAO) chief Roy Firmeza associated the burgeoning population of squatters to fast developments in the metropolis.
Iloilo no longer in list of best performing mid-sized cities
THE Iloilo City government will initiate a roundtable discussion to analyze and learn from the results of the 2007 Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Program (PCCRP) survey.
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas called for the said meeting after learning that Iloilo City was not included in the top 7 best performing mid-sized cities of the 2007 PCCRP [...]
2.6M more Metro folk by 2020 — ADB
AROUND 2.6 million more Filipinos are projected to be added to the already bursting-at-the-seams population of Metro Manila by 2020, according to the latest report released by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The ADB report titled “Managing Asian Cities” is projecting the population growth rate in Metro Manila to hit around 24 percent from 2006 to [...]
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