The need to decongest Metro Manila and other urban centers

The Medium-Term Philipine Development Plan for 2001-2004 proposed by the National Economic and Development Authority stressed the need and the manner of decongesting Metro Manila with the following plan: "Metro Manila will be decongested by attracting communities northwards to Subic-Clark and southwards to Calabarzon and Batangas Port. This will be achieved not by demolishing shanties out but by building commuter and transport systems to entice families to voluntarily relocated. In line with this, transportation networks that will link major industrial centers will be improved. This includes the Subic-Clark Toll Road and the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road."

This NEDA plan to decongest the metropolis is laudable if not overdue. Indeed, there are just too much formal settlers in the urban centers living in others’ private properties and in government lands under sub-human conditions thereby exacerbating the overburdened waste disposal problem, traffic, and most of all, the peace and order situation. They flock to Metro Manila from the provinces with the false hope of finding employment only to be frustrated to find that there is none. A few of them end up instead involved in the illegal and heinous activities.

There is therefore an urgent need to decongest the population of Metro Manila and the other urban centers all over the country and bring them to the countryside which is really the bigger portion of the country that needs to be made productive. To reverse the process into rural migration, though, the countryside must be developed so that in the process, employment opportunities are generated. If this happens, urban migrants will be enticed to relocate back permanently to the countrywide.

Ideally, our towns and cities should be situated along the coastlines and on the foothills of the mountains leaving thereby the low-lying plains for agricultural production. It is obvious then, that in order to provide the initial impetus for the informal settlers in the metropolis to migrate back to the countryside, government investment in agriculture and in coastal tourism must be given top priority.

The NEDA plan, while recognizing the felt necessity to decongest Metro Manila and the need to set-up the infrastructure and utilities to encourage the reverse migration, did not identify the financial mechanism to see the plan through. Without this vital component, NEDA’s laudable objectives cannot come into fruition.

It is this fundamental deficiency that I endeavor to address. In the previous articles, I stressed the mechanics of raising the needed money for development by borrowing against future taxes or the securitization of future taxes. Under this scheme, the National Government or the local government units, as the case may be, float long-term low interest bonds which the Bangko Sentral buys by creating corresponding new money which is then released to the economic system. This new money released to the system will generate revenues in the form of transaction taxes that will be used by the government to eventually retire the bonds. By this purely internal method of financing development, we are able to lower the government deficit and minimize the risk of the devaluation of the peso vis-as-vis the dollar by curtailing further foreign borrowings.

The idea I am suggesting here may be objectionable and may go against the present trend of thought of our responsible government officials who might think that such an alternative is strange. Yet, I strongly recommend the adoption of these measures. Why should we insist on the continued adoption of failed policies that are not able to bring about the desired development of our countryside?

This mode of raising local money through the securitization of future taxes may very well finance the agricultural development of our country and the creation of new towns and cities in accordance with the NEDA plan of establishing regional growth centers. It is imperative that these new towns and cities be located along the coastlines as, owing to their location along the beach and waterfronts, they are a major source of aqua livelihood and a natural tourist destination.

Indeed, the combination of sun, sand and sea is a magnetic attraction for tourists coming from countries of extreme cold temperatures. Because of the sheer cold conditions of the European countries, especially during the winter season, their instinctive migration pattern is to vacation in the tropical countries to bask in the warm beaches. The Philippines is one such destination with a 7,127 island archipelago and a coastline that is longer than that of the United States.

Though we may not have a competitive advantage over other countries as to exportable items, when it comes to tourism, we have a definite competitive edge. To cash-in on the advantage of tourism, the country has to provide state-of-the-art tourism infrastructure comparable to that of Phuket in Thailand, Shanghai in China for us to be able to draw millions of tourists into our tropical paradise. By capturing the foreign currency of these tourists, we will be able to recover the investments used to develop the tourism facilities in our shores. By pursuing an aggressive tourism development program we will be able to create jobs in the countryside and draw the excess population out of the urban centers.

In sum, Metro Manila and the other urban centers cannot be decongested without developing the countryside to provide employment for the urban settlers to relocate outside of the metropolis. By and large, the biggest opportunities at present to create jobs outside of the urban centers are in agriculture and tourism. And the most viable way to finance our agricultural and tourism development without further burdening our burgeoning foreign deficit is by creating our internal source of money.

This is a doable plan that our government authorities must take heed.