GMA’s Nautical Highway is a Bumpy Road for Small Traders, Farmers

Small traders and farmers in Negros and Panay see rough road ahead with the launching last week of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo‘s nautical highway project. They fear that the project, which seeks to boost tourism, will in fact endanger agricultural production and uproot thousands of peasants.

By Karl G. Ombion 
Bulatlat.com  

Bacolod City port                                                                                                   Photo by Karl Ombion

BACOLOD CITY- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s new centerpiece project – the nautical highway – may boost tourism but could prove to be a bumpy road for both small traders and farmers.

Last week, Macapagal-Arroyo launched the President Diosdado Macapagal Agro-Tourism Nautical Highway (PDM-ATNH) aboard a “roll-on, roll-off boat” with stopovers in key cities and an overnight cultural respite in popular tourist destination, Boracay island in Kalibo, Panay island.

Project planners said the nautical highway, which is named after Macapagal-Arroyo’s father, consists of a series of highways and seaports where buses and other transport vehicles are shipped through roll-on roll-off barges thus bringing people and goods to other agro-tourism sites in the countryside faster and cheaper.

They also said the highway will also boost the commerce and tourism industry in the country, enhance agricultural development and tourism potentials of the Visayas and Mindanao, attract investments, and spur rapid socio-economic activities in the country.

The highway starts from Metro Manila and, toward the south, traverses the provinces of Batangas, Marinduque, Romblon, islands of Panay and Negros, and via Dumaguete City traverses to Dapitan-Dipolog in Zamboanga del Norte, then to the cities of Oroquita, Ozamis, Cagayan de oro in Central and Northern Mindanao.

Hogwash project

Local executives in these provinces have lauded the project as highly innovative in promoting their agricultural and tourism potentials.

Negros Oriental Gov. George Arnaiz backs the GMA project because it fits well with the thrust of the province, saying that it will boost the province’s agro-tourism potentials and create more opportunities for investment and socio-economic activities.

Small traders, farmers and other people see otherwise, however. Small traders operating on small capital often with bank loans, and in a limited market network, are skeptical about the nautical highway project. They say that it may only be advantageous for the big landowner-traders, domestic and foreign agribusiness companies who look forward to faster flow of imported agricultural and industrial goods, as well as the outflow of their agricultural raw material exports to foreign markets.

Trading in all economic sectors, including those that facilitate tourism, have always been dominated by big trading companies, mostly with foreign capital. So having a cheaper transportation system certainly boosts their profits, they add.

Adding credence to the skepticism of the small businessmen, some leaders of the chambers of commerce in Western Visayas say that the project is actually not a new thing . The principal mode of transportation for commerce and trading between the Visayas and Mindanao is still shipping, they said.

They believe that government should instead support the shipping industry in the Visayas and Mindanao. As of now, small traders get poor services for higher costs, delayed departures and arrivals due to backward and dilapidated ships, they say.

Some ship officers and workers of Negros Navigation Corporation told Bulatlat.com that roll-on and roll-off boats are good only for inland waterways. At sea, however, their flattened floors make travel unstable and slow particularly in Visayas and Mindanao seas which are characterized by open and rough waters most months of the year.

Bulatlat.com research revealed that there were quite a number of roll-on and roll-off boats and similar flattened ships which have sunk in the Visayas and Mindanao waters in previous years. One of these ships was the Cassandra commercial-cargo ship which sunk off the waters of Butuan, northeastern Mindanao in early ‘80s.

Slow agricultural growth

The sharpest critique of the president’s new project so far came from the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas-Negros, which said that the president’s project is bound to frustrate further the peasants and small agricultural producers. Tourism will only aggravate the existing inequitous land structure and slow agricultural growth, it said.

KMP Negros spokesperson Richard Sarrosa criticized the government for its myopic concept of economic recovery and development saying that the policy of boosting tourism will only lead to the converion of more agricultural and coastal lands into non-agricultural and eco-tourism projects.

Sarrosa said that the government should instead support the development of diversified food crop agriculture in order to encourage production and achieve food self-sufficiency.

Bulatlat.com research further revealed that in Negros and Panay alone more than 3,000 hectares of agricultural lands, coastal zones, and restricted natural parks have been converted into eco-tourism resorts. Land conversion of this type has caused the displacement of thousands of farmers, settlers and fisher folk. Bulatlat.com

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