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Editorial/Opinion
ZAMBOANGA El De Aton Puhunan Na Chabacano
Zamboanga: Shrine City to Our Lady of The Pilar?
MINDANAO
PHILIPPINES
Remembering 9/11: The Best President the
Philippines Could Have Had
WORLD
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Good News from the ‘War Zone’ of Mindanao by: Mike Baños September 19, 2006 CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player’ is the title of one of my idol Elton John's seminal (pardon the pun) albums from the seventies. Maybe not too many people these days remember the songs (Daniel, Crocodile Rock, I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol, Elderberry Wine) much less the title of the album, which, however, could be a very appropriate lament for our colleagues in the media who have been accused of libel, biased reporting, and for an unfortunate few who are very fast becoming very many, an obituary. I find Elton's album title a very apt take on the perception many people in government (especially local government) and business have of media's role in "blowing up" the 'negative aspects' of the news and scaring away investors and traders from plunking down their megabucks in investments in their respective localities. Now that's a yarn I'm never going to buy in a thousand years, much less dignify with a retort in a public forum but this story would serve very nicely to bring up some recent empirical evidence to the contrary. Let's start with Zamboanga City, which I consider my birthplace although I was actually born in Manila, but here's this place where I spent my childhood and my college days, where a lot of my friends still won't visit even if gifted with an all-expenses paid vacation there. Well, surprise, surprise….the Zamboanga region was the fastest growing region not only in Mindanao, but try this : it was the fastest growing region all over the nation in 2005 with a 7.2 percent growth compared to the previous year. Northern Mindanao, powered by our ballyhooed "Corridor of Power" only managed 3.8 percent. Second, there's this report from an official of the Philippine National Police (PNP)-Southern Mindanao saying Davao City has the most number of gang war incidents in the region 11. PNP-Southern Mindanao Police Information Office chief Belflor B. Causing (a brave man, a very brave man) said gang war incidents happen almost everyday Davao city and are up 10 percent compared to the same period last year. From January to August, Causing said around 30 to 40 deaths have been recorded by the PNP due to gang war. Huh? Gang wars in Digong Country? Is Dirty Harry going soft? Or is the dreaded Davao Death Squads on vacation abroad? Gang wars and all, the Davao Region nevertheless continues to grow by leaps and bounds, powered by its burgeoning agri-business and export links to the Brunei Darussalam- Indonesia- Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga). Not the least, there's this couple of items recently about the incidence of corruption in public sector projects in Northern Mindanao dropping to 38 percent, but nevertheless confirming corruption remains significant in the region; and Cagayan de Oro's dropping from the top 5 list of Mid-Sized Cities identified by the Asian Institute of Management Policy Forum's Philippine Cities Competitive Survey for 2005. Why then, does Region 10 remain the biggest Gross Regional Domestic Product in Mindanao? At P58.138 billion, it remains P2.293-billion clear of Davao Region's P55.845-billion, which gang wars and all, is still widely believed to be Mindanao's biggest and most active economy. That ain't all, amigos! With a per capita GRDP of P14, 829 (at constant 1985 prices) Northern Mindanao is not only tops in Mindanao but in the Visayas as well, outranking other regional powerhouses like Calabarzon (P14, 159), Davao (P13, 892), Cebu (P13, 518) Negros (P12, 825) and Mimaropa (P12,735). In fact, it's only Metro Manila (35,742) and the Cordillera Administrative Region (17,919) which outranks Region 10 in the entire country. If we consider the CAR figure a statistical aberration (which I honestly think it is, no offense meant to our fellow Pinoys from the region), it's only Metro Manila which can boast of a higher GRDP than Northern Mindanao! So guys, please! Enough of the bellyaching and accusing the media of fomenting bad press about Mindanao already! The numbers don't lie. Anyone who wants the figures can write to me and I'll email them to him or her, although the best person to see is Engr. Clark Clarete of NEDA Region 10 who was kind enough to provide me with them. Please see Clark today and if you still believe the fourth estate is making our region look bad, look again. As Elton John, or rather Bernie Taupin (who actually writes the lyrics, Elton's the one who puts the tunes to them) puts it, "Don't Shoot Me! I'm Only The Piano Player!" |
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