This was his conclusion after he and his newly-organized group Southern Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SLCCI) conducted a province-wide studies of the economic endeavor that the pubic and the private sector were engaging.

“The dollar-earner abaca industry was wiped out by unpreventable infestation of airborne pests called bunchy top attacking all the plantations in different municipalities”, he pointed out. He stressed that the coconut industry, the second relied-on plants among the farmers earned P380M annually will go down if the brontispa infestation will not be checked out or prevented. Although palay (rice) was rated as good, he said, it’s not really much. “The farmers also lack of raw materials and major devices in cultivating their farms.”

“In business, 95% being registered are classified as micro-entrepreneurs, with only 50% small employers market,” he said. “Government agencies/offices were the biggest employers in the province employing 200,000 workers,” he disclosed to the members of the press, both broadcast and print media.

On real property taxes and other business taxes the percentage of collection were low, he said, with 80% of LGUs’ budgets were IRA-dependent.” But our tourism potential is not fully harness by LGUs”. He explained that the province has several tourist destinations that need to be developed to attract local and foreign tourists.

Castañares said the policies and regulations used by successful tourist places like Cebu, Bohol, Boracay, Siargao, Palawan and other well-known tourist destinations of the country can be studied and adopted by Southern Leyte tourism officials found applicable to the province. He said that in this new undertaking, agreements between the LGUs, the provincial government and the business sector were formulated as partners in this new approach. And the role of the government agencies is to provide infrastructure like roads and bridges leading to these tourist spots.

The private sector, referring to businessmen in the entire province who some of them are now members of the newly-organized Southern Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SLCCI), will take charge of the man-made attractions like buildings and other amenities near the location of tourist sites.

He confided that the province has already 500 air-conditioned rooms. “However, there’s still the need for the government and the private sector to provide clean and modern restrooms. Transportation services from Tacloban to Maasin and vice versa and the completion of basic facilities necessary to meet the tourists’ needs should be put in place”, he said.

The Business Development Analyst also emphasized that there’s also the need to amend some rules, regulations and policies of LGUs to make it investor-friendly, like providing tax holidays to newly-established businesses and the like.

In this connection, Castañares cited a 30-room hotel in Silago made of first class hardwood by a foreigner married to local lass. “Instead of providing moral support to his new business by imposing a minimum, tax”, he intimated, “the LGU did the reverse by imposing a maximum tax”. With that move, he said, the owner of the new hotel was discouraged and decided to close the hotel.

He explained that if 30 people will occupy every room, paying P5, 000.00 each per month that would have total earnings of P150, 000.00 per month. Multiply that by 12 months, it would be P1.8M or P2M a year, he said. “If it was allowed to operate with a minimum tax”, he continued, “the locality would benefit from it. But they do not know what they do not know”.

Included in the Southern Leyte Tourism Framework is the establishment of Tourist Hub in 4 places like Maasin, Sogod, Silago and Napantaw Dive Resort in San Francisco, Panaon Island. For Maasin proposed is as shopping mall with a cinema, development of Cagnituan Cave, the plan to build a 125-hectare Zoo at the Maasin Forest Park (formerly Danao Reforestation Project) to be named Zoo Leyte.

Castañares said that the builder of the proposed Zoo would come from the Subic Bay Zoo. “When the tourism industry in the province would already take off,” he said, “there’s also a plan to construct a 9-hole gulf course inside the MFP,” he added.

For the extreme adventure at the newly-finished, 350-meter length, 75-meter height, P1.024B the Agas-Agas Bridge, construction of zipline has already been started, he said, and it would be completed before the end of April this year.”A cable car will also be built”, he said.

For Silago he presented slides showing pictures of canopy walk. He claimed the tourist attraction has utilized about 40 to 50 feet apitong tree, which is also about 40 to 50 feet high.”This would make tourists to see 3 waterfalls after walking atop the canopy walk for 15 meters distance”. He said a coffee shop and a restaurant shall be built there soon.

Napantaw Dive Resort in San Francisco, which is one of the beautiful dive sites in the world, will also be developed. He said that Napantaw is one of the favorite sites for scuba diving and snorkelers.

Castañares disclosed that he has proposed to the LGUs where investors are engaged in tourism-related businesses to grant them 5-year tax holidays from 2011 up to 2016. “One of the effective ways to attract local and foreign tourists for the promotion of tourist destinations of the province is to invite travel agencies personnel to tour Southern Leyte”, he said. “Although the LGUs have to provide funds for such purpose for the guests touring in various areas of the place including foods and accommodations while staying here, but later on it would be compensated since they are the ones who will be spreading what they saw and their experiences while visiting Southern Leyte”.

He said in the offices of the travel agencies brochures on tourist destinations of the place can be made available for the local and foreign tourists to pick up as guides and references. While big billboards announcing the province’s tourism slogan like for instance, “Southern Leyte- remote, rural and rustic-the playground of region 8” will be posted conspicuously at NAIA-Manila, Cebu Mactan Airport, Ormoc and Tacloban airports.

Earlier, Castañares revealed that in September last year, the Southern Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry(SLCCI) was organized thru the sponsorship of the Department of Trade and Industry and GTZ, now changed to GEZ (German Economic Cooperation).It was held at Kuting Reef Beach Resort and Spa in Brgy. Asuncion, Macrohon. It has 50 initial members with Engr. Robert Castañares nominated as its Chairman of the Board. Mike Udtohan of the College of Maasin was the Vice-Chairman.

He added that “tourism is a community activity that would create wealth and provide employment to the people.”

“Every great accomplishment is a dream before it becomes a reality. Our vision is not simply to survive but to excel. Teamwork, discipline, dedication and unwavering faith in a God would solve for our lack of resources.” Quoting Lee Kwan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore. The SLCCI chair added another quote,” If you build it, they (it) will come”.(Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams).

Records of the summary of tourists’ arrival from the Southern Leyte Tourism, Investment and Promotions Center show the following figures. From January to December 2008-Maasin City: domestic-12, 977, foreign-1,259=total 14,236; Southern Leyte: domestic-13, 810, foreign-1,452= total 15,262.Total numbers for both Maasin City and the province of Southern Leyte are 29,498;

From January to December 2009-Maasin City: domestic-14,337, foreign-1,056=total 15,393; Southern Leyte: domestic-10,998, foreign-3,202= total 14,190. Total umbers for both Maasin City and Southern Leyte are 29,583;

From January to June 2010.No report yet from July to December-Maasin City: domestic-9, 105, foreign-483=total 9,588; Southern Leyte: domestic-7,121, foreign-1,744=total 8,865. Total numbers for both Maasin City and Southern Leyte are 18,453.

The top ten tourists’ arrivals of foreign nationalities during the yearly report were Germany, United States of America, United Kingdom, China, Australia, Japan, Austria, Canada, France and Korea. (Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.)