Ecozones, boon or bane to progress…

AND THAT’S t he “sticky question”. Are ecozones a boon or bane to a city or province’s economic and overall progress including the region’s growth?

Let’s look at the numbers and compare two of the most progressive highly urbanized cities/provinces in the Visayas – Cebu and Iloilo.

And we’re not going into that “Queen City of the South” thingy. Iloilo City is the official Queen City of the South according to the Queen of Spain, period.

Obviously, we did not include Bacolod as it is not even in the league of Cebu and Iloilo with its current problems in basic utilities i.e. power and water, but that’s another story.

Let’s check out Cebu first. The numbers f rom the Philippine Economic Zone Authority ( PEZA) tell it all.

To date, PEZA has registered 48 ecozones in Cebu province with 640 locator companies generating P275.3 billion in cumulative investments resulting i n 232,076 directly generated jobs, and churning out $5.9 billion annual average exports.

Moreover, PEZA locators alone in Mactan island such as the Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) I and II, Cebu Light Industrial Park, Jpark Island Resort and Waterpark, and Mactan Newtown remitted a total P267 million in tax payments last year from the 2% gross income tax share of the Lapu-Lapu City government. Quite impressive, I must say. Meanwhile, compared to Cebu, Iloilo province has far richer resources and can be at par with other regions in the country in terms of manpower, of course.

But when it comes to substantial and game- changing investments from both domestic and foreign investors, Cebu is a mile away.

So far, Western Visayas where Iloilo belongs has a combined 24 economic zones, per PEZA data, mostly in information technology and a handful in manufacturing, agroindustrial, and tourism.

In 2019, Iloilo City lone district

Rep. Julienne L. Baronda filed House Bill 5794 seeking for the