There was a time during its early years that a business chamber in Pampanga was mistaken for a new brand of fruit juice in the same way that, according to former President Fidel V. Ramos, Socsargen in Mindanao was thought to be a brand of infant formula.
Whoever came up with the abbreviated name PAMCHAM must, indeed, have been a very good marketing man to make the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an instant byword in the countryside and easy to remember. In about two decades after its inception, PAMCHAM, in fact, was adjudged one of the most active business chambers in the whole country.
PAMCHAM, of course, was the brainchild of the late Levy P. Laus, the most prominent self-anointed promdi in this neck of the woods. True to his undisputed title as a taipan in the province, Laus had pushed PAMCHAM to prime the countryside and be a catalyst in countryside business.
He saw the need for it at a time when Pampanga was slowly emerging from a big hole that the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and its wide devastation in the 90s had punched into the lives of the Kapampangans. In private and public conversations, he stressed the importance of a cohesive business approach to help accelerate the province’ recovery from the Pinatubo calamity. That’s the story of PAMCHAM, its raison d’etre.
Years before he died in an ill-fated chopper crash, Laus and other PAMCHAM leaders had a new advocacy: decongest Metro Manila. He offered the advocacy as part of a bigger solution to help congestion, from traffic to business, in the huge metropolis, by bringing people and business to the countryside.
To put his money were his mouth was, Laus hired Metro Manila professionals to work in his business empire which spanned the entire Central Luzon, including the metropolis, and started expanding in North Luzon. In fact, a good number of his senior executives were residents of Metro Manila. At the time of his death, more business plans in this geographical direction were on the pipeline.
At some point, when traffic volume in Pampanga became heavier than usual, a close friend and business peer kidded him if PAMCHAM’s decongest Metro Manila battlecry was still a good idea. Laus gave him a polite nod and chuckled at what seemed like an intuitive food for thought. After all, the guy had always been his devil’s advocate.
So it’s no surprise that the new leadership has welcomed the Balik-Probinsiya iniatiative of Sen. Bong Go and institutionalized no less by President Duterte himself during the pandemic crisis. Go’s formula is evident: encourage people to go back to the province, reduce Metro Manila’s cheek-by- jowl population and, voila,COVID 19 is controlled.
Right but not so fast, Rene Romero, who now heads PAMCHAM as its president, has cautioned. If the government goes ahead with it, especially with no implementing rules and regulations in place, the cure proposed might turn out to be worse than the disease.
A haphazard implementation of Balik Probinsiya, in Romero’s mind, will not solve the problems in Metro Manila, including the virus, but will just disperse and transfer them to the countryside. It’s another way of saying the program lacks thorough planning. Pilot test is a book text.
A case in point: Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez had called out at least three government agencies for sending balik-probinsyanos and OFWs to his city with no prior notice and preparation. His subsequent reaction to the minor snafu even elicited a less than enthusiastic response from Duterte. The classic case of beating the person bearing the bad news.
Change the adjective from minor to major, and you have a potentially outsize disaster staring the face of the Duterte administration amid the corona virus crisis that has wrought enormous physical, economic and social devastations in many parts of the country. Forget about the obvious fumblings of appointed leaders of concerned agencies.
Romero’s suggestion, in a letter to the Regional Development Council, was no brainer. It comes in three words: preparation, preparation and preparation. There maybe vocabulary or semantic involved here. There’s a distinction. and a chasm at that, between readiness and preparation.The former is a state of mind, the latter a state of matter. It’s like the ten virgins in the parable, five of whom took their lamps but carried no oil and were not accepted in the banquet as a result.
In terms of preparations, Romero emphasized four substantive actions as pre-conditions:1) investment and job creation 2) transport and road infra 3) housing and assurance of peace and order and safety. Sine qua non, as lawyers would put it.
Given Romero’s position, the status quo appears as simplistic as 1 plus 1: The government is ill-prepared to pursue it and looks like it’s just going through the motions of doing it as an ego-boosting plan to deal with the pandemic, or as an opportunistic effort to bring about a drastic change in the ecosystem of Metro Manila. Like gentrification, the other side of decongestion, with its attendant economic and social impact whose primary victims will be the poor. Cost of land and rent will shoot up, for one, on top of dislocation, unemployment, etc.
Adding insult to injury, there’s this latest clarification that balik-probinsiya should not be read as hatid-probinsya, a sign that’s almost equivalent to hoisting a white flag. Even Moses was told exactly what to do when he implemented God’s balik-probinsya to the Promised Land, a land described as flowing with milk and honey. And Moses was with them all the way from Day One, equivalent to bright boy Arthur Tugade commuting daily, as challenged by Senator Nancy Binay. And the Israelites endlessly grumbled for one reason or another.
Does Go have an epiphany? If he does, why not consult Presidential buddy Quiboloy first to give his ten-cents worth. In the multitude of counsellors, so the Proverbs admonished, there is safety. Rene’s PAMCHAM, which tastes just as sweet, and other like-minded people who understand what happens when the rubber meets the road, can come in a handy for such a grandiose and down-to-earth plan as moving people, even doing away with grimes.
