Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte on Friday offered a 300-hectare industrial estate inside the Camarines Sur’ Provincial Capitol Complex near the airport as the first site where companies in Metro Manila could relocate to or open for business once the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
A three-term governor before his election as representative of the province’s Second District, Villafuerte has told Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez offered as a possible “Balik Probinsya” relocation area the Camarines Sur government’s sprawling complex in the provincial capital of Pili that is just a five-minute drive from the Naga Airport.
“I am in full support of the Balik Probinsya project of Senator Christopher “Bong” Go as it will serve as a catalyst for quick economic recovery, especially in the countryside, as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic is contained,” Villafuerte said.
“Providing incentives to businesses to set up shop outside Metro Manila jibes with both the commitment of President Duterte to equitable growth and regional development and the spirit of the proposed CITIRA [Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act], which offers a menu of tax incentives to corporations that will set up shop and create jobs outside the metropolis,” Villafuerte, a co-author of the House-approved CITIRA bill, said.
Villafuerte added that the provincial government of Camarines Sur has opened its own medical facility in the municipality of Bula to deal with COVID-19, and is now ready to assist the Department of Health in treating suspect, probable and confirmed cases of infections by this deadly virus in the province.
Villafuerte said the newly-built Camarines Sur Medical Center has been converted into the province’s main COVID-19 facility, making it one of the premier hospitals outside Metro Manila equipped with cutting-edge equipment such as portable digital X-ray machines, an ABG machine to check oxygenation levels, handheld ultrasound devices to check COVID-induced pneumonia, defibrillators to revive people with irregular heartbeats and a computer-based ECG to monitor the heart’s electrical signals of patients with heart conditions. Moreover, this COVID-19 facility in Bula is equipped with about two dozen ventilators for the use of patients with critical symptoms of this virus.
Villafuerte said the facility has a relatively big number of ventilators because the provincial government had used local funds to purchase 15 such machines—the single biggest one-time acquisition of ventilators by a provincial local government unit (LGU) in the entire country.
To complement the Balik-Probinsya Program, Rep. Ron Salo of Kabayan Party-list group, filed House Bill 0668 that sets a national minimum wage of P600. On top of this national minimum wage, the existing National Wages and Productivity Commission and the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards shall determine incentives and other productivity improvements to the wage earners within a region when still necessary, Salo added.
“This measure will help our fellow Filipinos keep up with inflation or the increase in the general price level of goods and bring them closer to a humane standard living for all, especially to the lowliest and unprotected members of the workforce, by providing them real wage gains,” Salo said.
In a meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, President Rodrigo Duterte endorsed the proposal to offer incentives to people to return to their home provinces as a way to decongest Metro Manila, once the containment measures are lifted nationwide and travel returns back to normal.
Lopez said he would push for improvements in the tax incentives offered under the proposed CITIRA for companies that will locate outside Metro Manila.
Lopez said one of the incentives he would back to improve CITIRA is the grant of a longer income tax holiday for companies that will locate in the countryside.
The House-approved CITIRA bill provides for ITH and other perks for businesses willing to relocate or expand their operations outside the metropolis.
CITIRA’s counterpart measure in the Senate is pending with its Committee on Ways and Means.
Following the proposal, Villafuerte got in touch with Lopez to inform him that “CamSur is ready with the land, incentives and support to accept investors in the Balik Probinsya program.”
This 300-hectare property is ideal for investors, he said, as it is already equipped with the needed infrastructure such as fiber optic internet connection along with power or electricity and water and transport accessibility.