How the Economic Zone catapults Tarlac City

                                                   From pee center to progressive city

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – People in this city should look how an economic zone became a linchpin for the thriving of a once sleepy Tarlac City.

An executive of a multi-billion pesos Japanese firm told here the crowd in the recently held Luzon Ecozone Summit how the presence of industries like Sumitomo International Wiring Systems transformed the once slumbering town Tarlac into a burgeoning city in the early 1990s after Sumitomo put shop at the Luisita Industrial Parks’ Special Export Processing Zone in Barangay San Miguel.

 The privately owned Park’s hosted corporations like URC, Centro Techno Park, Philippine Long Distance Telephone, and others.

BOOM - Someday Dagupan City would have edifices just like at Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority just approved the Lucao - Pantal Tourism and Growth Center (LPTGC) in the Bangus City . Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez said that after the approval of the city as economic zone, she sees 5,000 direct jobs in three years from graduates of its universities and colleges would be working at the Information Technology - Business Process Management that service the global market.

Before it became a city in April 18, 1998, Tarlac, because of its backwardness, was mocked as a pee center of commuters and motorists that ply the long butt hurting ride Manila –Baguio City – Ilocos Highway.

Daley Dan Pasion, representative of Sumitomo, would probably not agree now on that human nature’s relieving tag. He said the award winning Japanese firm started amid the Asian Currency Crisis in 1991 with 6,000 workers mostly assembling cars’ wiring harness around the world for Toyota, Honda, Mazda and vehicles like Kawasaki.

“Without us the vehicles would not switch and run,” he quipped.

He said 90% of its employees based on its plant in San Miguel are high school graduates.

He cited that 6,000 workers multiplied by five in a nuclear family means 30,000 probable consumers in the market.

“Because of us, Tarlac first saw its first McDonald,” he told the crowd here led by this City's Mayor Belen T. Fernandez, whose family is also the franchisee of the same American food chains.

Tarlac is a first class component city in Region 3 with a land area of 274.660000 kilometer.

Other business firms that sprouted like mushrooms in and out of the Industrial Zone are Pancake House, Jollibee, Starbucks, Max Restaurant, Pizza Hut, Robinsons, SM, and others.

Presently, the award winning Japanese and Filipino consortium has 23,000 employees all over Eastern and Central Luzon.

It was established in the Philippines by Filipino trader J.V del Rosario in partnership with Sumitomo Wiring Systems, Ltd. and Sakata Inx Corporation (now Siix Corporation) of Japan.

It is not surprising that the local government unit of Tarlac City beats this city with its P1.2 billion annual appropriation budget in 2016 versus this city’s P768 million on the same year. The spike of Tarlac’s local government budget was due to the revenues of the real property taxes from constructions of floors of business establishment and the business taxes paid by investors in and outside the economic zones. 

Tarlac’s life blood is also fed by a growing population of 342,493 (2015 Census) while this 1947 founded city has only 171,271 people (2015 Census).

Pasion said the company is labor intensive and the Japanese investors are awed by the fast comprehension of Filipino trainees on the nuances of the assembly work.

“In one month we could train these workers while it takes several months with their contemporaries in Cambodia and Mexico because they cannot comprehend the instructions given to them.”

He cited that the comparative advantage of the Filipino high school graduates was skill they got from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and literacy in speaking and writing English.

Thanks to the American colonization the U.S style educational system where English is given importance with national language Filipino as mandated by law.

“Our workers are 37 years old average and we have only 1% turnover or those who leave the job,” he said.

Pay in the industrial zone according to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority Law is equivalent to those at the Clark Special Economic Zone and Subic Bay Freeport Zone which are higher than the prevailing mandated minimum wage in the Philippines.

Former Tarlac City Administrator Vladimir Mata, a former administrator of the LGU here, said the revenues of Tarlac City were still underrated.

“Actually underperforming iyan. They have 76 barangays and a lot bigger in terms of population.

I was working to increase it (revenues) by at least one- third when I was administrator there”.

He cited this city is a lot better on registering businesses than in Tarlac.

 “Dagupan has around 5000 plus businesses. Tarlac City has almost the same number. When I went around, I sense I can double the number of establishments. Maraming hindi registrado kasi”.

Pasion said what made the Philippines attractive to foreign investor was because of the availability of trained workers, abundance of high school graduates with values that can easily be honed, the industrial peace inside the zone, no rebels and terrorists that threatened the investors and the expatriates there.

“That’s internal stability and it’s good for investment. This is BBL or Build Better Lives (BBL),” a play of words by Pasion who probably refers to the elusive Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in Mindanao that deters investors to go there.

 (You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)