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THE Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) is seeking to revise the Tourism Act of 2009 to be able to retain proceeds from the sale of its assets.
This developed as Tieza Chief Operating Officer Mark Lapid told the BusinessMirror many of the agency’s projects “remain suspended due to the low collection of travel taxes,” from which the government corporation derives its operating funds. In 2020, Tieza had to give up its funds for use in the government’s Covid-19 fight under Bayanihan One, which put many of its projects on hold. Some funds, however, were set aside last year to keep ongoing projects. (See, “Tieza eyes completion of 35 ongoing projects,” in the BusinessMirror, February 9, 2021.)
In June 2022, travel taxes collected from departing passengers from the Philippines was P197 million, up from the P24 million at the start of the year. Lapid said their target collection for the year is P1.2 billion, still a far cry from the P7.2 billion that they collected, prepandemic, in 2019.
Under the Republic Act 9593 (Tourism Act of 2009), only 50 percent of the travel taxes remain with Tieza, formerly the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA). The rest are shared with the Commission on Higher Education (40 percent of total), and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (10 percent). Tieza is the infrastructure arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT), and has been known in the past as a favored source of funding for pet projects—not necessarily tourism-related—of lawmakers and other politicians.
Sale proceeds for its own
Lapid also expressed hope that certain provisions in RA9593 which pertain to the sale of its assets, will be revised. “We’ve asked the help of the Secretary [Christina Garcia Frasco] to revise these provisions so we can retain the proceeds from the sale. Imagine, we’ve invested in them, maintained them, but when we sell them, the proceeds will go to the TPB [Tourism Promotions Board],” he said. The TPB is the marketing arm of the DOT and tasked to oversee the Tourism Promotions Trust, funded from the sale or lease of PTA assets.
The law likewise mandates that local government units where these PTA assets are located “have the right of first refusal” in their sale. However, some assets considered “cultural treasures and heritage sites such as the Banaue Hotel and similar assets” can be retained under Tieza’s management and preservation.
The pandemic, however, affected the sale of these assets, said Lapid. “While we had interested buyers, because of the pandemic, they may have lost interest,” he said. Aside from the Banaue Hotel and Youth Hostel (BHYH), Tieza assets also include: Balicasag Island Dive Resort, Club Intramuros Golf Course, Gardens of Malacasag Eco-Tourism Village, Intramuros and Rizal’s Bagumbayan Light Sound Museum, Zamboanga Golf Course and Beach Park, the Iloilo Convention Center, among others.
Aid to stranded tourists
Meanwhile, Lapid reported to Frasco over the weekend that a landslide eroded and damaged the side service access road of the 81-room BHYH, following nonstop rains in the province on July 7. He said another landslide happened by the hotel’s main entrance.
No guests were harmed during the landslide, according to a news statement from the DOT, and cleaning was already underway. Frasco instructed the hotel’s use to be temporarily suspended to ensure the safety of the guests and its personnel.
Earlier, Frasco reached out to Banaue Mayor Joel Bungallon to offer free transportation to stranded tourists, and any other assistance the LGU may need. According to the DOT-Cordillera Administrative Region, of the 55 domestic tourists from nine accommodation establishments (AEs) initially reported stranded, only a few remained in their respective AEs as of Saturday.
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