Thank you, please take your seat. This is quite a show. I’m glad to see my former friends from UP, the Singing Ambassadors that gave us a good rendition of a favorite song and also, of course, the heartfelt national anthem of the Philippines. I’d like to greet my colleagues from DTI, the awardees today, the participating cities and municipalities, esteemed guests, and fellow workers in government a pleasant morning to all.
I’m honored to celebrate the 10th year of the cities and municipalities, competitiveness index or CMCI program. I’m honored to be with you as well. Congratulations to the participating local governments in the 2022 CMCI program. I take this opportunity, too, to express my appreciation to the program and express my appreciation to the program’s champions who have always been there to join us in our endeavor to promote competitiveness since the CMCI was established in 2012 that’s 10 years ago.
Today, we will recognize the cities and municipalities that have excelled through the leadership of their empowered and dedicated local chief executives. Some of whom are here with us. The work of cities, municipalities, and their leaders contribute to the overall competitiveness of our country.
What makes an economy competitive? The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index defines competitiveness as the productivity of an economy. This goes along with the efficiency of that economy’s institutions and policies—examined through human capital, enabling environment, markets, and innovation ecosystem.
The IMD World Competitiveness Center adds that measuring a nation’s competitiveness involves looking at factors that enable an environment to create more value for a nation’s enterprises, and ultimately, for its people. The Center’s annual global report includes as factors economic performance, government and business efficiency, and infrastructure, among others. the Philippines climbed four spots to 48th place out of 63 economies in 2022. That is this year, from 52nd out of 64 economies in 2021. This was the Philippines’ highest ranking in two years. However, our country continued to lag, sadly, behind our neighbors in the region placing 13th among 14 Asia-Pacific economies in the index.
We know the Philippines possesses the right institutions and innovation capabilities that allow micro and macro-economic activities to function effectively. However, our country still has a vast potential for improvement and we have to work together to achieve a higher ranking for our country compared to our neighbors in the region.
The CMCI program addresses the lack of a nationwide standardized system for compiling local indicators. Still, LGUs can assess their relative level of competitiveness and derive insights for their local policymaking and planning. As part of the CMCI initiatives, the regional Competitiveness Committees were also established. These committees regularly track the local competitiveness indicators and formulate programs to strengthen competitiveness and investment promotion across their respective regions.
The CMCI has five pillars for its total competitiveness scoring system. As mentioned already by Director Salonga the Economic Dynamism; Government Efficiency; Infrastructure; Resilience; and our latest addition for this year, Innovation. The last pillar focuses on creating, developing, and implementing new products, services, or processes toward improved efficiency, effectiveness, and competitive advantage.
The CMCI is constantly evolving to be a timely and relevant indicator of local competitiveness. Recently, DTI has concluded the first phase of the Big Data Project, where experts reviewed the Program’s processes and indicators relative to global and regional economic activities. The big data initiative sought to determine the fitness of existing indicators, as well as assets timely relevant, and readily available information, in measuring local competitiveness.
Through the CMCI Data Analytics Platform, created 2 years ago, LGUs have been given access to encode on the Local Data Capture Sheet (LDCS), the data on their performance. Through the efforts of DTI regional competitiveness committees, we can push through data validation and organize today’s summit based on the results of these analytics. Remarkably, LGU participation increased from 1,607 last year to 1,631 this year short only by 3 LGUs based on the total number of 1,634 cities in municipalities across the country.
We’re also excited to have the support and participation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region which is represented here. This is the region in Muslim Mindanao or (BARMM) LGUs in CMCI this year. From the initial trial participation of 36 LGUs from BARMM in the 2020 cycle and 109 in the 2021 cycle, we achieved the participation of 119 LGUs from BARMM. That is 100% participation from the BARMM. Let’s give BARMM a big hand. Overall, in the country, we’re still short of 3 LGUs that we need to bring in to participate in this CMCI.
I now address the LGUs represented here. You play a vital role as we strive for continuous development in our nation’s competitiveness. You are our partners in the ease of doing business. As Chair of the Anti-Red Tape Authority or ARTA, support the streamlining of government operations. Let us work together to digitize your data and digitalize your processes towards e-governance. The ideal digitalization of LGUs is to roll out a common standard digital system across cities and municipalities. I hope that you in the LGUs will accept this standardization because this will facilitate the ease of doing business in our country and increase the level of our competitiveness.
Along with the distress brought about by the pandemic, opportunities have paved the way for innovation. As we rise and recover from the pandemic destructions, we are pursuing continuous improvement for local competitiveness. We will go town by town, city by city, province by province, and region by region, in ensuring that no one is left behind.
Our efforts must be rooted in collective initiatives as we ascertain or attain excellence through the competitiveness pillars that I will go through now. On the economic front, our prime concern must be to ensure that LGU resources are aligned for economic growth and recovery by reducing regulatory burdens. Through streamlining and digitalization of processes, we enhance the investment attractiveness of your respective localities as well as the whole country. Yesterday, I met with a business group and they related to me how long it takes to register a business in some municipalities and cities. In fact, one case said it takes 71 days. That’s more than two months. In other countries, this approval of permits and registration takes only minutes. So with digital processes, I hope we will be able to achieve the speed that investors and businesses are looking for in applying for approvals, permits, and other requirements with local governments.
Along with these competitiveness pillars, we must also give top priority to equipping ourselves and our fellow Filipinos with appropriate skills and knowledge in resilience, including disaster risk management. You know, our country is so fortunate, actually, unfortunate in being in this part of the world that’s full of hazards. We have typhoons, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, etc.
But we are also being toughened by these disasters and we hope that we will be always ready when disasters strike. And we must make full use, on the other hand, of the very fertile land we have by improving our productivity on our farmlands and that will improve our image within the country and in the global community.
Along with these competitiveness pillars we have to do the work. Sustaining inclusive innovation—I’d like to talk about that as a final note. I would like to encourage our leaders and mentors present here today to prioritize the final and latest competitive pillar I mentioned earlier, which is innovation with industry 4.0. We hope LGUs embrace innovation as they expand their local economies. I am confident that LGUs can innovate to respond to productivity, governance, and financial deepening issues in our needs.
Looking forward from today, we will witness the recognition of the deserving LGUs that worked hard to improve their competitiveness scores. Since 2012, the CMCI Program culminates with a summit like this one and where the most competitive cities and municipalities are recognized and awarded. For the coming years, I invite the LGUs nationwide to join us in reaffirming our commitment to working together to outrank nobody else but ourselves. We have to outrank ourselves from year to year. Local governance is vital in keeping our national economy competitive, innovative, and resilient. National development is deeply anchored on local development. So LGUs, Cities, and Municipalities you are the constituents of the nation and national objectives cannot be achieved without your support
Finally, my sincerest gratitude to our government, private, and academic stakeholders for their unwavering participation over the years in this program. Thanks to our LGUs that have endeavored and committed to pursuing quality and excellence in this year’s CMCI Cycle. Above all the prestige this awarding ceremony has or is going to provide us, it must be the commitment to serve and pursue shared prosperity among the Filipino people that must be our top priority. Cheers to ten years of this award.
Maraming salamat po at mabuhay tayong lahat! ♦
Date of Release: 21 October 2022