Businesses upbeat Eastern Visayas will bounce back

TACLOBAN CITY — The business sector in Leyte and Samar is backing the new administration’s thrust to boost agricultural productivity and speed up the recovery of Eastern Visayas.

Real estate developer Victor A. Domingo said the economic woes of Eastern Visayas can be overcome now that the agriculture sector is being given proper attention by the Duterte administration.

Domingo, speaking during the 41st induction of officers of the Rotary Club of San Juanico, said the region’s economy can rebound with help from the Duterte administration through Agriculture Secretary Manny F. Piñol.

Domingo, a former public works and highways secretary and president of the Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the people of Region 8 should not only depend on coconut and copra for livelihood but turn to other crops like coffee, cacao, rubber and abaca.

He hailed the concern and thrust of Piñol to develop the agriculture sector of Region 8, particularly the island of Samar.

He said Eastern Visayas has no factories and other industries except the ones the Leyte Industrial Estate in Isabel, Leyte.

Domingo said the entry of malls in Tacloban and in other urban centers of Leyte and Samar that are owned by mall developers in Manila brings no real economic benefit to the region.

"These malls and big commercial establishments from Manila are like draculas. They suck the money of the people and it cannot give economic benefit to us," he said.

He also said traffic is becoming a problem in Tacloban as car sales rise with dealers offering low down payments.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that in the first half of 2014, Eastern Visayas took over the title of the country’s poorest region from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The PSA reported that the poverty incidence in the Eastern Visayas reached 54.9 percent, indicating that more than half of the region’s 4.10 million residents have incomes below the annual threshold set per person, based on the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey.