It was bad news for those who are from Mountain Province. We are referring to a recent provincial activity where it was revealed by capitol officials that the province is the poorest in the Cordillera.
There is no way a province can get out from the rut of poverty without a concerted effort from the private sector. This entails some degree of business creativity and financial backing. In an economically desolate province where the main source of livelihood is small scale or even micro-farming, putting up a business is a virtual precipice climb without any mountain climbing gear. Thus people who want to break from the mold and start small businesses need all the help they can get. Except perhaps those in the town of Sagada whose people are enjoying very good income from homestays, hotels, restaurants and other tourist catering businesses. So much so that it has become difficult there to hire helping hands to do manual labor as guiding tourists is a much better option income- and effort-wise.
What kind of help do the people in impoverished provinces need? Financial and marketing assistance.
As to financial matters, it is now a fact that even impoverished provinces in this country get hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pesos for infrastructure projects. A minuscule fraction of that can be used to provide capital to those who want to put up small businesses. An assistance of just a P100,000.00 to one family can serve as capital to start a small agribusiness like the production of bugnay wine or strawberry jam.
Then what? To assure the sustainability of such businesses, a province should allot a considerable amount for marketing assistance. The province should even buy their products and then market them in cities such as Baguio City or Metro Manila. For how can a family in the hinterlands spend a big amount for the selling of just a dozen boxes of bugnay wine in the city? The expense could not be financially justified.
Of course, before a product could even be produced, all the technical assistance to assure quality should have been taken care of.
But then again, how can local governments provide these when their own employees are incompetent in running businesses, much less trailblazing ones as those to be put up in the middle of nowhere? Otherwise, they would not be in government.
Yet, this problem has to be addressed. Perhaps this can be done by tapping the expertise of those in the private sector for ideas but the implementation must have to be done by government employees. For efficiency, they should be under the supervision of those in the private sector with the required expertise.**