Signals

The action of the national government in refusing to post immigration, customs and quarantine personnel in the Bacolod-Silay Airport is a No. 1 signal that nothing is right in the way the government treats us. The representations made by Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia and Silay Mayor Oti Montelibano have been rebuffed with a curt reply that there is not enough personnel and equipment for this purpose.

Even the offer of the two cities to provide the equipment was not looked at even through the simple act of checking whether, indeed, the idea can work to help. Someone did listen and checked, but not to solve the problem, but to find ways to scuttle the idea.

Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. just does not want to help even if two other commissioners are willing to help. If he continues to be adamant, the damage to Bacolod and Negros tourism programs will be a serious blow at the time when the national government plans to entice millions of tourists to come.

Bacolod is doing its best to respond to the national program but with officials like David acting like a potentate who could not care less, our chance is nil. Our efforts are better shifted to other concerns where officials are inclined to help.

I can understand if there is near panic in this request for just temporary personnel to be assigned in the Silay airport.

Tour groups in Korea have organized tourists for Bacolod thus the request for direct flights from Korea to Bacolod from January 10 to February 7. The same tour companies had organized a tour group here last year and all went well. We thought the chartered flights would continue on a regular basis, as the Koreans said, but after the first one, the added flights never materialized.

The ten flights requested have been denied entry in Silay. Two groups had to land in Cebu and then transfer to the Bacolod-Silay Airport. Travelers know the hassle of this arrangement, a dead sure disincentive for a revisit and surefire formula for bad publicity,

We were at a loss at the reason, some talking about our poor facilities, but now we know that the difficulty is in the Bacolod-Silay Airport, not because it is incapable, but the mindset of David is to sabotage our efforts. David is the kind of official the Aquino government needs like a hole in the head.

Zest Air will now land in Cebu or Iloilo where David provided the personnel and means to handle foreign travelers.

A person willing to help can easily see the solution to the chartered flights to the Negros destinations, but when one is unwilling to even think of a solution, there is no solution.

This is a signal that something is amiss but we shall leave that to our supposed national representatives to work on. The two local governments, with Bacolod Administrator John Orola doing the best he could, are doing their utmost. We have yet to hear from our national officials to help out. Rep. Alfredo Benitez who is reportedly close to Malacañang, is already extending help but we need all the clout Negros has to pound on the head of David that this program is not just ours but of his boss, unless he is dealing with the opposition to make Aquino look bad.

The signals from the national government are bad. It is a clear signal, however, that the national government agencies directly involved in the campaign to bring in tourists, are not coordinating and the local governments must fend for themselves.

No wonder that, of the three Asian countries with the least number of tourists, we are behind Vietnam and Cambodia. These two countries are closed societies and yet they generate more tourists than us, a democratic society that we pride ourselves to be, because Vietnam and Cambodia’s tourism programs are highly coordinated.

We want to get some 10 million tourists but how can we, when we cannot get them to our airport which was transferred from Bacolod to Silay ostensibly because it would be of international standards, and bruited about to get planes coming in directly from abroad?

If we want to work for tourists to come directly, we must send a signal that we do not want the likes of David and if our national representatives have any balls at all they should (and we should as well) ask for a congressional inquiry for this undeserved prejudice against us.

But we must work collectively. There are means but we must have the will to send signals to the national government that we cannot be kicked around and we do nothing but beg on our knees.*

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