Foton steps off the brakes

Now it can be said: Foton Motors Corp. will step off the brakes and will make a serious investment in the Philippines by building an assembly plant inside the former Clark Airbase. After asking members of the media (for several months) to keep a tight lip until their application was approved, Foton Philippines made the official announcement during their “Big Show” at the World Trade Center.

Aside from giving the P-Noy administration something to crow about, the announcement is also a sign that the commercial truck sector is clearly a serious growth area in the Philippines, which justifies the construction of an assembly plant for Foton. This bodes well for the many buyers and owners of Foton trucks because it also means increased availability of parts as well as technical expertise in the area of service and maintenance. By having their own plant, Foton actually generates jobs, opens doors for export while becoming more competitive against other brands that have capitalized on their ASEAN identity and resulting tax benefits as assemblers.

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In the meantime, there are very serious suggestions for the President to independently check or review information that he is being fed particularly by Cabinet members and particularly by the DOTC.

In a small gathering of businessmen and opinion makers, talk revolved around the claim that P-Noy was led to believe that no actual work or foundation work had yet been made for the “controversial” MRT/LRT common station being disputed by the Sys and the Ayalas. As a result, the President may have agreed to the suggestion of relocating the “common station” from the Sy side to the Ayala side. As it turns out, soil studies, pile driving and all the necessary foundation work had already been completed during the Arroyo administration. 

That small piece had a lot of senior journalists shaking their heads in disbelief and the audacity of some people to mislead the President. Well, here’s another: When P-Noy gave a speech in Leyte during the Leyte Landing commemoration, P-Noy reiterated that his government will be relocating the provincial airport (Daniel Romualdez Airport) from Tacloban City to the tiny town of Palo based on “studies and recommendations made by JICA or Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Hours later someone from JICA sent a message to local officials that JICA has not made any official study or made an official recommendation for the immediate transfer of the airport to Palo town. The reason the person from inside JICA sent the message was because they did not want to be crucified by Taclobanons or to end up having no one to work with on development projects after being used as scapegoats or political excuse to cover up what could be political vendetta on the part of the administration.

In fairness to the President, he reportedly gave a succeeding statement where he said that repairs on the existing airport would be completed by November or December. So either someone did a switch on the President or someone is actively trying to put the President’s foot in his mouth. Perhaps it would be best if Malacañang or JICA presented the so-called study and recommendation to transfer the provincial airport. That way we know if it’s really a professional act or simply political vendetta against Taclobanons.

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For many years, people engaged in tourism in the province of Iloilo have lamented the fact that they don’t have the necessary facilities to attract visitors to the province. One such facility was a full-pledged international convention center, which is a basic requirement of large organizations for holding national conferences and summits.

This was always a “chicken or egg” situation where Ilongo businessmen find themselves tied and shy of making investments in Iloilo because there was never enough people traffic or visitors. As a result the province and the city never had enough hotels and room accommodations. At one time, the city won an award for having cleaned up and revived their biggest river that runs through the city. But when it came for visitors to witness the awards ceremony, they encountered problems finding accommodations and facilities of international standards to hold events.

From all that disappointment came the idea to build the airport and an international convention center, which has slowly become a reality for Iloilo. My friends from the province tell me that Senate President Franklin Drilon has been the prime mover of the project and in spite of all the criticisms and accusations, the Senate President is dead set on delivering what the province seriously needs. The fact of the matter is that the project comes quite late considering many provinces and major cities in the Philippines have at least one if not two international convention centers.

Convinced that the iloilo convention center is a done deal, a number of Ilongo businessmen are now making silent but serious moves to invest in hotels, resorts and tourism businesses in general. With names like Andrew Tan and Villar making the rounds in business talks, the Ilongos clearly don’t want to be left behind. So there is some truth to the movie line: “If you build it, they will come”  For this the Ilongos clearly owe Senator Drilon for being attentive and responsive to the needs of Iloilo Tourism.

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For lack of space I’ll have to tackle the unexplainable traffic jams we are now experiencing all over Metro Manila some other time. Yesterday it took me only an hour to drive from Lipa City to the SLEX/C5 tollbooth. But from C5 I had to drive around and back through the Fort because of traffic and then cut through to EDSA and eventually to Pioneer Street in Mandaluyong. That ladies and gentlemen took me exactly one hour or the same amount of time to drive around 70+ kilometers. What I can’t fathom is why NO ONE FROM THE P-NOY GOVERNMENT bothers to explain what’s going on. If you can’t fix it at least explain it.

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