Big gov’t move-out to decongest Manila

Metro Manila expects the Big One within this half century. When the West Valley Fault shakes by Magnitude-7.2, not only the capital but the whole country will be crippled. Government, commerce, and trade are too concentrated there. Broken and burning infrastructures would block rescue and relief. Government services and industries would be shut down indefinitely. It would take 15 to 50 years to recover.

That can be averted. National leaders would do well to think of relocating agencies from the imperilled megalopolis once and for all. Business, educational, and cultural institutions would follow. The move-out would ease Metro Manila’s traffic gridlock. It also would be opportune, as the country disperses power from “imperial Manila” to the regions.

Dispersing industries to the countryside was the buzzword of the 1970s. Eleven major projects – a fertilizer-smelter complex, geothermal plants, steel mills, among others – were erected in Central Luzon, Eastern Visayas, and northern Mindanao as magnets of development. They did spur some localities. Still Manila remained the main concentration. For it was where the powerful President stayed, along with the parliament, the military, the executive offices, and the Judiciary. Though born and raised in various provinces, top politicians, generals, and technocrats gravitated around Malacañang. Naturally, bankers and tycoons, artists and intellectuals did too. They built homes in posh subdivisions; camp followers and employees (like modern-day aliping saguiguilid) squatted in slums in between. That phenomenon goes on today.

Industries fully would relocate only if the government does so first. It can start with the military. Army general headquarters can be relocated from cramped Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City to sprawling Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija. There’s more than enough land there for battlefield exercises. Also, to build quarters befitting generals to privates. The Air Force can move, as long proposed, to Siquijor. That island province is the country’s geographic center, so strategic as air center too. The Navy can reoccupy and expand the US facilities at Subic Base, Zambales, also strategic as a natural protection against typhoons. It would need to find a counterpart in the eastern seaboard, even if smaller than Subic, near the Benham Rise marine resource.

Where the military pioneers, other sectors would follow. First, of course, would be the businesses that cater to it, from uniforms to weaponry, food and fuel, engineering and communications. Malls, universities, churches, and entertainment halls would then move in.

The country has now a President who prefers to work and rest in his home city in Mindanao. He is allergic to the Manila high society, and averse to creating traffic whenever he’s there. His six-year tenure would be the best time to erect an Executive center in Davao City. The site is big, clean and safe. That could be the start of a massive relocation of the national departments away from Metro Manila.

Best first to move would be the Dept. of Interior and Local Governments, and its Philippine National Police. Then, the economic offices: finance, budget, agriculture, agrarian reform, environment and natural resources, energy, trade and industry, tourism, transportation, information and communications technology. And then the rest. In a subsequently federalized system, Mindanao can be the new, knocked down national center.

A new national parliament building can be built in the Davao area too. After all, parliament would merge the Executive and Legislature. The two present leaders of Congress – the Senate President and House Speaker – hail from nearby Cagayan de Oro City and Davao del Norte province, respectively.

The Judiciary can relocate to the Visayas, say, in Panay. Major real estate developers already are on a construction binge in Iloilo. They can be tasked to develop a new city to house the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Sandiganbayan, and Court of Tax Appeals. Again institutions of commerce and learning, arts and leisure would follow suit.

Modern telecoms would keep the government branches and military services in close contact. Teleconferencing, emailing, and secure video-phoning would be easier than the present maneuvering through hours of Metro Manila traffic just to meet.

And as for Metro Manila, vacating it would force its Balkanized local leaders to shape up. And when the Big One strikes, it would have a fighting chance as help from the national government comes from outside it.

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