Bongat sees bright prospects for Naga In 2014

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NAGA CITY -- “Significant gains had been made in various fronts. All these have been made possible not only by the hard work put in by the City Hall workers but by Nagueños who continue to take part in defining the future of the city.”

These were the lines uttered by Naga City Mayor John Bongat as he spoke with optimism during the State of the City Report he delivered barely a year ago, embodying his anticipation for a better year emphasizing the principle of the HELP your City agenda.

This apparent show of great leadership treads the path of the LGU’s adherence to transparency and empowering its constituents by encouraging their participation in all the facets of the city’s initiatives and programs. This paved the way for the latest accolade on its sleeves as cited by the 1st Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index conducted by the National Competitiveness Council or NCC in July 2013.

Naga City, along with other local government units in the country was named among the Top Ten Most Competitive Cities in the Philippines and cited as one of the top ten cities in terms of Governance Efficiency.

Out of the 122 cities and 163 municipalities included in the report, Naga City ranked 6th in the overall competitiveness and got the 5th spot under the Top cities with effective governance. Naga was among the other four (4) city municipalities in the Bicol Region which includes the cities of Ligao, Iriga, Tabaco and Legazpi.

The selection was determined by the LGU-recipients economic dynamism, government efficiency and the infrastructure category. These three (3) main factors should be evidently present in the local government units as their tools in ensuring that progress and development are being shared to the members of the community. Naga City was among the top cities under the 3rd category with the aggressive development it has shown in terms of road networks, basic utilities and registered vehicles.

NAGA CITY’s DYNAMIC ECONOMY
Naga City’s economic dynamism is evidently described in the City’s Comprehensive Development Plan which expansively retorts to the development of its stakeholders and allied sectors. This contains the city’s vision of shared governance where its citizens and the leaders who were given with an overwhelming mandate by its people, work together to make Naga a better dwelling place and flourishing business hub in the future.

Its adherence to a more self-motivated economy was evident in the rise of business establishments, employments and the presence of financial institutions in the city.

The Metro Naga, an alliance of 16 local municipalities with Naga City as its primary base, was cited by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) as one of the Top Ten Next Wave Cities for 2012-2013.

In August, an ICT roadshow, held in coordination with IBPAP and the ICT@Bicol Council, gathered all information technology-Business Processing Management (IT-IBM) advocates and leaders, small and medium entrepreneurs, students, graduates related to IT-BPM, LGU’s and other government workers and all ICT stakeholders in Naga City. The event highlighted the capacity, readiness and effectiveness of the Bicol Region, particularly the City of Naga and the province of Camarines Sur as investment destination.

Also last year, the IBM Global Process Services (IBM-GPS) Expansion ventured in Naga City, making it as the first multi-national corporation to conduct its business undertaking outside of the greater Manila area. Its presence is expected to generate more job and other career opportunities not only to Nagueños but also to other job seekers in its neighboring municipalities.

For 2012 alone, Naga City claims more than 6,138 business registrations, including renewals totaling to a fund of Php514,469,537.98 in investment. This is 112 per cent change in gross sales recorded last year. These businesses also rendered 17,542 new job opportunities for Nagueños and other parts of Camarines Sur.

Currently, there are 39 and 5 commercial and rural banks respectively inside the city’s vicinity. Lending was made easy for those who want to venture into business with the presence of 3 microfinance institutions, 60 cooperatives and 11 lending companies. Business was made more favorable to entrepreneurs with the presence of 32 organized business groups in the locality.

LGU’s TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Upon assumption in offi ce in July 2010, Bongat has placed transparency, accountability and good governance as part of his executive agenda. This became a vital part of the programs, activities and plan that the city have undertaken and will undertake in the next years to come.

The programs herein included focused on strengthening the capability of the local government bureaucracy as well as its local officials to work together to realize a more livable and flourishing Naga City. It also encourage the involvement of voluntary groups of civil society organizations and groups in the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the different programs of the local government.

Naga City scored a perfect 5 in the transparency score for complying with the following indicators: presence of public information office, extent of communication mediums to update local government plans, accessibility to public documents; economic governance score in Local Governance Performance Management System (LGPMS) on entrep, business and industry promotion; capacity to generate resources; quality of civil application system to business sector and processing time of building, business and occupancy permit.

Naga City has adopted a computerized business application and permits are being processed and completed in a time-effi cient manner. Building and occupancy permit processing only takes more than 4 hours while business permit transactions are done within a 15-minute period.

It also scored high in terms of responsiveness to business by reducing the steps to 5 and transaction timeframe to less than 15 minutes and was strengthened by the presence of an investment promotion center.

Significant awards that the city received relevant to the Competitiveness award include eGov, Galing Pook, Seal of Good Housekeeping, Gawad Pamana ng Lahi and Most Business Friendly City.

IMPRESSIVE BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Naga has a total of 42 cell sites; 16 for Globe, 19 for Smart and 7 cell sites under the Sun. The number speaks of a strong technological infrastructure that made communication in the city much easier and accessible. Almost 99 percent of its households are connected to basic utilities like landline, water, electricity and internet. These services are accessible 24/7.

There were also a total of 72 Automated teller machines or ATM scattered all around the city to facilitate easy fund transaction, either for personal or business use.

Under the social and tourism infrastructure, Naga won’t be left behind with 1,619 hotel rooms and 49 restaurants. There are more than 490,337 registered vehicles comprising public and private utilities serving the entire Naga area and surrounding municipalities. Basic road networks are also in place, including the ease of access from the city’s Central Business District (CBD) to major ports, airports and other points of embarkation making it a tourist-friendly city to all foreign and domestic visitors.

The strong existence of these basic infrastructures has listed Naga among the top cities under the Infrastructure category with the aggressive development it registered.

The NCC believes that through this endeavor, LGU’s will be able to evaluate their performance and in the process, formulate development plans that is suited to their locality, and for the local chief executives to better manage their constituents and the resources and be more competitive in terms of raising its ladder one notch higher every year.

Naga, with its simple but alluring catch as “Maogmang Lugar” (Happy Place) will continue to soar high envisioning itself as a model of good governance and responsible citizenship, people-centered development and God-fearing people. This is geared towards the realization of its mission to make Nagueños happy and proud of their city.-Ana-Liza S. Macatangay