Crashing

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

In October 2006, the Public-Private Sector Task Force on Philippine Competitiveness was created by virtue of Presidential Executive Order No. 571 to promote and develop national competitiveness. In June 2011, President Aquino amended E.O. 571 with Executive Order No. 44, renaming it as the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) and expanding its membership.

The NCC aims to promote a more competitive Philippines and instill a culture of excellence through public-private sector collaboration as a means to reduce poverty through inclusive growth. One effective way the NCC has been promoting competitiveness and excellence among Philippine cities and municipalities is through its annual ranking called the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index.

The ranking was developed by the National Competitiveness Council through the Regional Competitiveness Committees with the Assistance of the United States Agency for International Development. This local competitiveness framework adopted the one developed by Michael Porter which is also being used in a number of global surveys on competitiveness. It defines local competitiveness as how a city knows its resources and how it uses these to improve its standard of living.

Cities and Municipalities are ranked based on the sum of their scores on the three main pillars of economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure and in the 2015 rankings one of the greatest surprises is that this scientific and non-partisan method of measuring the competitiveness or the ability to give prosperity to its citizens has found “Booming” Bacolod City to be ranked 73 rd after ranking as high as 2 nd in the country in 2010.

When it comes to the three pillars of the competitiveness ranking, Bacolod City fell to number 97 in economic dynamism, number 90 in infrastructure, and number 46 in government efficiency. This is a highly urbanized city that topped the country in terms of government efficiency merely 5 years ago but has now been overshadowed by almost 40 other component cities in terms of overall competitiveness.

The irony of this embarrassing backslide that is measurable and supported with data that makes it difficult to belittle or attribute to politics is that it contradicts with the current administration's subjective and unverifiable slogan that claims the complete opposite. How can Bacolod be “booming” if it is crashing lower and lower in the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index with every passing year?*