Tourism stakeholders push for P10-B credit facility in Bayanihan 2 for COVID-hit businesses

The country’s tourism industry stakeholders on Wednesday called on the government and lawmakers to keep intact the P10-billion credit facility for the sector’s COVID-19-hit micro and small players under the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, or “Bayanihan 2.”

In a joint statement, the Tourism Congress of the Philippines (TCP) and over 50 national and regional associations said the P10-billion “rescue package” in the Senate version of the Bayanihan 2 bill would allow the industry, particularly the small players, “to quickly recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“While we acknowledge the long-term wisdom of the House version of allocating the amount to infrastructure projects under the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) to help the industry’s recovery, we believe that the priority in this critical period is an emergency rescue package for tourism businesses like ours,” the statement read.

“The tourism industry is made up of 70% MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel restrictions for most of the first half of this year have pushed us to the brink of bankruptcy and will surely nudge us over the edge in the coming weeks with no intervention by the government,” the tourism stakeholders said.

Representatives Ron Salo of Kabayan party-list and Johnny Pimentel of Surigao del Sur were pushing for the allocation to go to infrastructure projects for tourism, contrary to the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) call to put the P10 billion into a loan facility. 

Cagayan De Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez, on the other hand, called for the fund to go to stakeholders as direct assistance instead of to infrastructure projects.

Two former Tourism secretaries also questioned the P10-billion allocation to infrastructure in the House version, with Gemma Cruz Araneta saying "there is no glaring need for infrastructure in the time of a deadly pandemic."

Meanwhile, Senate President Vicente Sotto reminded Senator Sonny Angara to keep intact the upper chamber's version of the P10-billion assistance to the tourism sector under the proposed Bayanihan 2. 

“We are the small tour operators, travel agencies, transport operators, resorts and hotels, restaurants, dive shops, suppliers and service providers employing the drivers, waiters, booking agents, tour guides, dive masters and other workers who turn the wheels of the entire industry,” the tourism stakeholders said.

“We are the sector that gave employment to 5.7 million workers and contributed close to 13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product,” it said.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, 99.9% of the 144,640 establishments in accommodation and food and service activities are considered micro, small and medium enterprises.

To date, an estimated 4.8 million formal and informal tourism industry workers have been affected by the various levels of community quarantines in the Philippines, according to the tourism stakeholders.

“We are not asking for a dole out and neither will it be so. We are seeking credit facilities, to be administered by the government financing institutions like the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines, to provide us with loans that will tide us over,” the tourism stakeholders said.

“The funds will help us rehabilitate our facilities and upgrade our businesses to conform with the current health and safety standards set by the authorities and more importantly, help our employees financially. We committed to paying these emergency loans as tourism restarts domestically and globally,” it added.

Apart from TCP, the following are the tourism stakeholders supporting financial assistance in the Bayanihan 2:

“We sincerely believe that the tourism infrastructure program envisioned by the House version of Bayanihan 2, while necessary in the long run for the recovery of the tourism industry, will not provide us with the relief that the industry urgently needs now,” the stakeholders said.

“We therefore appeal to the members of Congress, particularly the bicameral conference committee currently deliberating on the final version of Bayanihan 2, to seriously consider the plight of the workers of the tourism industry, if the intent of the legislation is to provide emergency relief and stimulus to restart the economy. This was also how the other countries helped their tourism industry,” it said.

During the plenary session, Angara said the bicameral conference is expected to be finished tonight or on Thursday morning with just 10 to 12 provisions left to be discussed.

“We are drowning in a stormy sea and we need a lifeline NOW. We cannot wait for a new boat to be built to rescue us,” the tourism stakeholders said. — BM, GMA News