Bet has More Money on Vote Buying than GDP of Entire Region

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each of the many regions in the Philippines has been eclipsed by the money spent through vote buying by a mayoral bet in Region 1.

GDP is total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year.

Since we are talking about a region here and not a nation or state, we call the financial gauge as Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP).

If this mayoral bet spent more or less half-a-billion pesos or P4,000 by buying each of the almost a hundred thousand of voters to win a seat that gives only P188, 187 a month (Salary Grade 30) or P7,339, 293 in the three years’ term – including the three years of 13^th month pay -, many regions in the country could hardly chalk up a half-a-billion pesos GDP in a year.

As I rummaged the data on the GDP of each of the 17 regions through the figures of the Philippines Statistics Authority (Regional Accounts of the Philippines Unit in Thousands of Philippines Pesos as of April 2022), the three selected regions in the country with less than half-a-billion pesos GRDP each or lower with the wherewithal of that billionaire mayoral bet. They are the following:

REGION		ANNUAL 2021

 

Region 2 (Cagayan Valley)                   P399, 981, 012

Region 8 (Eastern Visayas)                    450, 089, 271

Bangsamoro Autonomous Region

 in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM)              284, 656, 980

 

Curious how the state of the four provinces’ Region-1 fare with the other 16 Regions in the country, I searched the gross domestic products (GDP) of Regions 3 (Central Luzon), 4-A (Calabarzon), 6 (Central Visayas), 11 (Davao Region), and the National Capital Region.

After seeing the hundreds of millions if not billions of pesos the people in these regions earn through quarrying, mining, construction, agriculture, forestry, fishing transportation, manufacturing, storages, and others, I checked too how these regions earn on the special economic zones they hosted.

Among the 17 Regions in the country, the top five in GDP in 2021 were the following:

== = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

                        RANK                             GDP 2021

1)      National Capital Region:           P6,157, 784,762

2)      CALABARZON (Region-4-A):     P2,785, 911,990

3)      Central Luzon (Region-3):        P2,061, 962,928

4)      Central Visayas (Region- 6):     P1,237, 626,585

5)      Davao Region (Region-11):      P    967, 227, 645

6)      Ilocos Region (Region-1)          P   643, 928, 511

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

The National Capital Region topped the GDP race because it is the region where the central business activities of the country are based. It hosted a burgeoning 14,406,059 population (2022  Worldpopulationreview.com) out of the total demography of the country of 113.80 Million for this year.

Economic Zones

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) reported in their January to December 2021 data of performance with US$ 63.061 billion (P3.50 trillion) of export income and a total of 1,782,913 million workers in its registered-ecozones.

Products the Philippines exported in this year were electrical, machinery, computers, copper, optical, fruits, nuts, and others.

Here is the breakdown how the five regions above generated billions of pesos from January to October 2021 on the special economic zones they hosted:

==================================================

REGION                   EXPORT EARNINGS (In billions of pesos)

1)      Region 4-A                          P 22. 401 Billion

2)      NCR                                      21.251

3)      Region 1                                 5. 566

4)      Region 3                                 3. 672

5)      Region 6                                 3. 651

6)      Region 11                               2.094

 Geez, when I saw the lethargic number of vehicles plying to and from the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) and saw minuscule number of billboards like the Thunderbird Resorts and Casinos in Poro Point, La Union and the surfing capital of the Northern Philippines in San Juan, La Union compared to the giant signage that dotted the stretches along the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and burgeoning number of cars racing vice versa, I thought there are more monies that circulate in the Central Luzon Region compared to my Ilocos Region or the four provinces’ Region-1. 

But it's Res Ipsa Loquitur (the thing speak for itself) on the P5.566 billion of Region-1 that dominated in January to October 2021 the P3.672 billion of Region 3.

(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)