LGUs are critical in investor experience

Yes, Cebu is the best place to invest or so I say many times not only here in this column but also to my friends who are in the lookout for opportunities to grow their money. But what if you are faced with a foreign investor who asks you to show him around for a city tour?

Well this is what I did. I mean this is what happened. I have been in talks with a foreign investor who wants to put up a mega-storage facility in Cebu. He flew many times here to discuss the feasibility of his project and to get to know the opportunities that Cebu has to offer and how his company can benefit from the much-touted boomtown in the south. I did what I have to do not only to assure him of the positive business environment but also of the hard-working human capital that abounds in the region.

The facility that he wants to put up is not as big as we see in the economic zones, but quite enough to employ around 500 people. And all the while I thought that I got it made as planned, ready and excited to meet the big bosses, so off I went to pick them all at the airport first thing in the morning around seven. We then decided to proceed to IT Park to have breakfast along with a pleasant thought of a very productive meeting ahead.

And because they wanted to pass by the second bridge, I felt proud when they also knew of the story behind this magnificent bridge.  But all of a sudden its magnificence burst like a bubble as we got down to its foot. When everyone thought that the second bridge was going to be one of the good stories to tell about Cebu, it was also a nightmare to tell. Traffic was like hell. And I did not expect it to be that worse that my hunger for breakfast was traded for an appetite to burn the bridge out of anger and wasted time.

My guest-investors were obviously pissed off as they also noticed the apparent inefficiency of traffic people to contain the indiscipline of motorists and truck drivers. There were no traffic people to guide motorists in areas where there were road repairs. We were stuck for almost an hour to get out of the horrendous traffic at the bridge.

Our ordeal did not end there. Traffic was still all over after we got out of the bridge from Maguikay all the way to Talamban. And along the way, I wished many times that we were running a bit fast so my investors would miss seeing a mountain of garbage lobbed at the roadsides. We spent at least almost three hours to get to IT Park that we had to postpone our meeting with a very heavy heart and a very light stomach.

Our local government units should realize the price that the private sector has to pay in bringing investors to Cebu only to be ruined by traffic and eyesores that our investors see whenever we show them around.

Come to think of it, the government has spent also a great deal of money in international advertising to promote the Philippines as the way to go for investment. We may be able to lure them to check us out, but all this advertising money will eventually be wasted if our investors find no consistency in what’s being advertised and what they experience when they get here.

I know we can’t solve our traffic problems overnight but we can ease it up a bit by deploying at least more traffic cops in really congested areas. There will be people who are willing to break traffic rules when they are in a hurry. We still fall short when it comes to traffic enforcement.

And how much do we really care about our garbage? It’s a shame that garbage steals the show on our national highways. I don’t understand why our LGUS still allow all these trash piled up and left on the streets.

No amount of advertising and PR can help or change the mind of investors when they come face to face with the reality of traffic, dirt and other problems. The buck stops at the LGU and if the LGU is not doing anything we will never be able to win any investor.