Washing our dirty linens in public

MUCH as I hate washing dirty linen in public, as the famous cliché goes, somebody has to shoot the picture.

A friend of mine just sent me the following email:

One of our foreign clients apparently didn’t have a good experience during his almost two weeks stay here in CDO. It happens that a new hotel member of Cohara where he stayed didn’t have laundry service. He was advised by the staff to avail of it somewhere else (They didn’t even offer to deliver it for him to a laundry shop nor give him directions!).

Not only is it a shame for a hotel (a big one at that, somewhere very near Robinson’s) not to have a laundry service, but to tell a client (a foreigner) to have his clothes cleaned somewhere else is really ulaw kaayo and stupid. So how can we invite investors in CDO when those who have been here (and stayed in that hotel) are telling the whole world that Philippines is not a nice place to stay? FYI for Cohara.

As I have stressed time and again, to be 12th among the country’s top mid-sized cities in terms of "Quality of Life" is truly kaulaw after all the breast beating and crowing we do every time we advertise the "City of Golden Friendship" as investor-friendly.

It’s those little things like helping a potential investor get his laundry pressed and cleaned that often makes the difference between an inquiry and a direct investment.

And that’s not all. Let’s do all get our numbers together so our leaders don’t commit basic mistakes in geography that could leave foreigners who have studied the map of Mindanao better than these locals scratching their heads and wondering how a taipan of one of the country’s biggest diversified group of companies, a city mayor and the president of the local chamber of commerce could have gotten their facts so mixed up and broadcast these in public like the gospel truth.

The error started with Lucio Tan’s speechwriter whom the taipan ought to fire on the spot for making his boss look like an idiot. Recently, Tan announced during the 15th Mindanao Business Conference hosted by Zamboanga City that Tanduay Holdings Ltd. was investing P1.25 billion in a new liquor and soft drink factory "in Cagayan de Oro City" beside their state of the heart US$100-million Asia Brewery Inc. factory.

As every school boy or girl from Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental knows, the ABI Brewery reputed to be one of the most modern in Asia is located around 18 kilometers from the boundary of Cagayan de Oro City in the town on El Salvador.

Further inquiries from friends inside the company revealed that the P1-billion Tanduay liquor factory has been under construction for two months now, as was another plant for bottling purified drinking water (Absolute) and still another for bottling soft drinks (Virgin Cola).

For the taipan of one of the country’s biggest conglomerates to be revealed in public as apparently unaware just exactly where his biggest investment in Mindanao was located, speaks volumes of the slap dash, uncoordinated efforts Mindanaoans are undertaking to push their island as an investment and tourism haven.

To compound that error and confound interested parties here and abroad, Hizzoner and the Oro Chamber both jumped on the bandwagon, profusely thanking the taipan for pouring in his investments in Cagayan de Oro and appreciating the comparative advantages and active private-public sectors partnership that made investing in it a whiz. Well, the investments have started pouring all right, 18 kilometers to the West from the boundary of Cagayan de Oro with Misamis Oriental.

I’ve previously approached both Promote Cagayan de Oro Foundation and the Oro Chamber to address our slide in City Competitiveness as revealed by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in its biennial study through the AIM Policy Center "Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project" (PCCRP).

We could do this with a public-private sector driven ‘‘competitiveness’’ task force which could be co-chaired by Promote CDO Foundation and the Oro Chamber. As suggested by Pueblo de Oro chairman Guillermo Luchangco, we should "benchmark the opposition," be proactive in making the city more attractive and friendly to investors, briefing "champions" in government by personally inviting them to experience the city, organizing teams to personally share first hand experience with visitors, and tempering the city’s vaunted opposition stance so as not to make this a deterrent to potential investors.

Another direction could be organizing volunteer sub-committees to address the seven major drivers of city competitiveness identified by the AIM Policy Center: cost of doing business, dynamism of local economy, linkages and accessibility, human resources and training, infrastructure, responsiveness of local government to business needs, and quality of life.

The latest edition of the AIM study shows Cagayan de Oro’s ranking sliding to fourth in infrastructure (from 2nd in 2003); to 10th in cost of doing business and twelfth in quality of life.

Not the least, we can also consider the model used by the GMA administration in identifying five strategies for global competitiveness: ensuring food security and globally competitive labor cost; reducing electricity cost; modernization of infrastructure, reduction of red tape in all agencies to cut business costs and mobilization, upgrading and dissemination of knowledge and technology for productivity.

As my buddy Romel used to quote to me from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.