Thursday, August 6, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES [ BusinessWorld Online ]
DAPITAN CITY — Local officials are setting up a tourism enterprise zone in this city.
The announcement came after the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), formerly known as Philippine Tourism Authority, came out with its implementing rules and regulations.
Romeo G. Jalosjos, a former congressman who owns several tourism-related enterprises here, said his group will apply for TIEZA accreditation that will give investors tax perks to accredited tourism and related businesses.
Under recently signed Republic Act 9593, or the Tourism Act of 2009, Tourism zone locators will pay a final tax of only 5% of gross income, instead of the 30% corporate income tax, provided that income from local sales does not exceed 30% of income from all sources.
Private developers whose projects will become tourism zones will also be able to offer to their locators duty-free importation of capital goods and income tax holidays.
Mr. Jalosjos said they have already identified the area where the zone will be located. It will have complete facilities for tourists such as retirement village, diving spot, beach resort, theme parks, shopping centers, spas, hotels, and casinos, he said.
"But the major facility is the retirement village for foreign senior citizens," he said in an interview, adding that there will also be a modern hospital in the village.
The retirement village will be built near the Dakak Beach Resort, along with the area where the Manila Yacht Club will put its extension facility.
He said they are building a four-star, 12-storey hotel with 360 rooms adjacent to the Gloria de Dapitan, a theme park that is gradually turning into an information technology park.
He declined to give the exact amount of investments that the company is willing to shell out inside the enterprise zone, but said the four-star hotel alone will cost around P1.3 billion and that it is expected to be built this year.
"No other area in Zamboanga Peninsula can compare with the natural assets of Dapitan City, which...includes the story that Dr. Jose Rizal stayed here [in exile in the late 1800s]. That story alone can be a Mecca of research on Rizal by academicians, researchers, scholars, and students," he said.
Mayor Dominador G. Jalosjos, Jr., said the vision is to make this city the tourism hub in Western Mindanao.
"We are banking on the pride that our national hero has done here," he said.
To fully preserve the cultural and physical structures of this city, the local government has embarked on the Dapitan Cultural Heritage Program, which divides the city into two — The Old Dapitan and The New Dapitan.
Vice-mayor Patri Bajamunde-Chan said this program aims to preserve the historical heritage of one half of the city, and to develop the other for commercial use.
The multimillion peso project will include a full renovation of the city. Roughly 40% of the city’s area will be remodelled to replicate the area’s looks at time of Dr. Rizal.
The Old Dapitan project will start from Sta. Cruz beach — "The Puno de Embarco de Rizal" — where Dr. Rizal first set foot here and up to the Rizal Shrine. The project will then stretch to the town plaza where his relief map of Mindanao is; and at the spot in the St. James Church where he stood each Sunday to hear mass.
Mayor Jalosjos said they have has adopted investor-friendly city ordinances, by "which we give them tax holidays." He said they have come up with the city’s master development plan that focuses on tourism. — Darwin T. Wee
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