A meeting with TIEZA officials

Newly-inducted Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez has not even warmed his seat and he is already embroiled in a controversy when Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, who is a member of the Commission on Appointments (CA), insisted that he couldn’t yet assume his seat until the CA confirms him. Apparently, there is a constitutional provision that doesn’t allow such appointments by the President while Congress is in session. Honestly, I really don’t know why there is such a proviso in the Constitution.

But it appears from a TV interview that Sec. Jimenez took his oath of office in an acting capacity, which means that, at least this time, Malacañang did its homework and the appointment of Sec. Jimenez should be okay. This incident tells us that Sen. Lacson is trying to earn a new reputation of being an alert watchdog, looking into such things that we ordinary mortals don’t even know existed. But in all this, whether he likes it or not, Sen. Lacson is in my book “Damage goods” for he ran away from the very laws that the Senate enacted. Which means he should not be picky in questioning Malacañang when it oversteps the bounds of the law, when he himself did more than overstepping our laws; he broke a lot of our laws and worse, he got away with it!

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Still on tourism issues, last Sept.2nd, I attended the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) Roadshow at the Waterfront Hotel to hear TIEZA officials Atty. Joy Bulauitan, deputy general manager for administration, and Atty. Guiller B. Asido, corporate secretary, talk about the mission and vision of TIEZA. Chief operating officer (COO) Mark Lapid did not attend that Roadshow. Opps, if this name is foreign to you, TIEZA is the entity that took over the former Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) as mandated by the Tourism Act of 2009.

TIEZA is mandated by law to be on top of all tourism-related businesses or sites that are classified as potential tourism zones, ranging from historical sites, health farms, spas, golf parks, resorts, theme parks, convention or meeting centers and even restaurants. The guidelines on these tourism-related businesses are in a very thick book, which people in the tourism industry ought to study very carefully.

There are incentives for an investor who would plunk in a minimum of US$5 million in a tourism enterprise, like a resort hotel, that’s about P200 million plus that few Filipinos can afford to invest. This means that TIEZA would be seeking only foreign investors who would be given the privilege to get those incentives. So during the open forum, the first to speak was Mr. Javier Quintos of Plantation Bay, who virtually asked the TIEZA officials if there were any incentives for tourism facilities that are already helping our tourism industry? Apparently there were none.

I had to stand and ask the TIEZA executives that perhaps the TIEZA board ought to come up with some kind of incentives for those already operating as tourism establishments … after all their air-conditioning or kitchen equipment needs refurbishing or they need new tourism buses or coaches. This is not really asking too much from TIEZA.

I don’t know whether the TIEZA Board would look into their plight, which is why I told the TIEZA officials that they should not follow the path of the PTA, which was one of the most inutile government agencies that I have come to know and I used my pet peeve called the Kang-Irag Golf course as my example something that TIEZA officials know fully well. But what they didn’t know is that, we had a real playable golf course designed by Black Knight, a company owned by South African golfing great Gary Player.

We were already playing golf in Kang-Irag when development abruptly stopped because of the EDSA Revolt 25 years ago. Then the Philippine Commission on Good Governance (PCGG) sequestered the companies run by Anos Fonacier and suddenly, the PTA had to operate a golf course that they had no idea of managing.

PTA officials immediately got rid of the Kang-Irag golf course and gave it to Mr. Jose Go of Gotesco Properties and Gotesco Land, Inc. Mr. Go’s people told us that they would construct a 36-hole golf course and destroy the old one. We pleaded to Mr. Go to destroy only the first nine holes and when they came up with the new 18-hole golf course, they can destroy the rest to pave the way for the next 18-hole golf course. But Mr. Go did care to listen and destroyed the entire Kang-Irag golf course.

Atty. Guiller emailed me a report from the Supreme Court that showed the PTA won its case against Gotesco and TIEZA is now in control of the Kang-Irag land. I also learned that two Cebuano groups have shown interest in getting what’s left of the Kang-Irag golf course. When we know who they are, we will publish their names for the sake of transparency.

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