ARMM traders investing elsewhere

COTABATO CITY — So poor is the investment climate in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that 20 percent of local businessmen have been diverting their investments annually to safer areas outside of the region in the past five years.

The ARMM’s Business Council is now apprehensive that only "sari-sari stores" will exist in the region by 2004 if the trend persists.

The council, in a baseline study, found out that 20 percent of the region’s business and entrepreneurial sectors have been moving out yearly due to serious constraints, including the area’s nagging security problems and absence of foreign capital inputs.

"If they will continue to leave, we will certainly have problems with our revenue generation. We will also have employment problems," Jose Mario Gana, secretary-general of the ARMM’s Business Council, said in a statement.

Melham Alam, director of the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information, said Gov. Parouk Hussin will convene a two-day, inter-agency and multisectoral business congress next month as part of efforts to address the problem.

Alam said the region’s concerned sectors can come up with strategies on how to prevent the "irreversible effects" of the continuing decline in the business climate.

Records of concerned ARMM agencies show that there have been no other capital-intensive, foreign-funded enterprises put up in the region in the past five years, except those already existing since the stints of former governors Zacaria Candao and Lininding Pangandaman.

The ARMM covers the impoverished provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in Central Mindanao; Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan and Marawi City, known hotbeds of the armed secessionist movement, kidnappings and feudal politics.

Lawyer Ishak Mastura, ARMM trade secretary, said there are about 2,000 business establishments in the region, but only "small and medium enterprise outfits."

Mastura said his department is now drafting proposals for the Regional Legislative Assembly, including tax incentives for various business ventures and the setting up of a Regional Economic Zone Authority.

Businessman Antonio Santos, governor for Mindanao of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and other forces fighting the government should be accelerated.

"Investors from different parts of Asia will never come in unless they are sure that their money is safe in the ARMM and in other areas in Mindanao where these rebel groups pose a threat to security," he said.

Santos, owner of the city’s biggest hotel, said the ARMM business community has not recovered until now from the devastation wrought by former President Joseph Estrada’s all-out offensive against Muslim secessionists two years ago.