BAGUIO CITY – Benguet, the country’s Salad Bowl, and Baguio City, the country’s Summer Capital, are now taking different measures to bring back the vibrance of their economies that were heavily impacted by the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Benguet, which relies on agriculture, mining and tourism as its major source of income, is still able to survive the wrath of the global pandemic as vegetable production and the operation of large-scale mining companies such as Philex Mining Corporation, Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company, Benguet Corporation, and Itogon-Suyoc Resources Inc. were able to continue their operations being export-oriented companies, while Baguio City whose businesses are tourism-related, suffered the brunt of the virus that continues to spread in the said areas.
Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong said that since the implementation of the Luzonwide lockdown in March, Baguio City lost over P1.7 billion in gross receipts in the city’s tourism industry alone and the same could skyrocket to P1.4 billion if the local tourism will not be allowed to gradually open by the end of the year.
Further, he added that based on the survey conducted by the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB), some 78 percent of the tourism-related establishments in the city were already heavily impacted where more than 5,000 workers already lost their jobs.
Currently, the city is implementing the online processing of business permits that allows the licenses to be issued in less than an hour depending on the completeness of the attached documents while the cashless transactions among the different establishments, the city market and the public transportation, are currently being worked out as one of the mitigating measures to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
Benguet Gov. Melchor D. Diclas earlier disclosed the province is not yet ready to open its tourism industry because there are other municipalities that are not yet ready to allow the influx of visitors to abate the spread of the virus.
Of the province’s 13 towns, Kabayan, that hosts the scenic Mount Pulag National Park, the highest mountain peak in Luzon and the country’s second mountain peak, is the only municipality with zero COVID-19 case since the implementation of the community quarantine.
Except for the capital town of La Trinidad, the governor admitted that embracing online transactions might take a longer period because of the difficulty of connectivity among the different towns due to the very poor internet signal by the two giant telecommunication companies providing such services.
COVID cases in Baguio City are nearing 400 with 10 fatalities while Benguet is also nearing the 200 mark with a single recorded death.
Both Baguio and Benguet remain under the moderate risk modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) based on the standards of the national inter-agency task force for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
HRAB media officer Andrew Pinero said tourism-related establishments, such as hotels and restaurants, are simply operating for the sake of their loyal workers and that some businesses have decided to implement shifting of work among their workers just to ensure they will survive the pandemic until such time the tourism industry will be allowed to gradually open and gain its momentum.
He stated the 250-member HRAB strongly supports the initiative of the city government had the tourism department to gradually open the local tourism industry for visitors from similarly situated places such as the Ilocos Region provinces of Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte to jumpstart the ‘Ridge to Reef Baguio-Ilocos Tours’ as part of the efforts to revive the ailing economy.
By September 22, 2020, Baguio City will be hosting the North Luzon travel fair where the Ilocos provinces and the city will be showcasing their tour packages that will be offered for interested visitors.
Baguio City will also be formally launching its Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) platform simultaneous with the opening of the registration of interested visitors from Region I wanting to visit the different tourist spots in the city.
Both Magalong and Diclas expressed confidence the local economy will be able to recover from the pandemic once the prevailing community quarantine restrictions will be lifted once the appropriate medicines and vaccines against the virus shall have been developed although there is a need to at least start working on how to work around the new normal situation caused by the pandemic. By Hent