This paper is
divided into four parts. The first part is a quick review of Romblon's
historical development which most of you are already familiar with.
The second part highlights Romblon's current socioeconomic situation.
Part three consists of a discussion on the necessity for renewal and
reform, including the dilemma that we face as members of the body
politic. The last part draws in broad strokes the prospects, challenges
and current perspectives that will contribute to our understanding
and resolve to explore viable options in setting a genuine reform
agenda.
I always argue that our historical, cultural and political experience
has not fully prepared us for a participatory role in the affairs
of the province.
This is due to the narrow, traditional and elitist nature of our politics
and the continuing trend of our political culture to run the course
of a dependency or welfare and patronage system. Personal and familial
ties and relationships continue to govern most of our economic and
political decision-making. This also happens to be our national culture.
The inherent structural defects and weaknesses of our public institutions
compound further this malady.
I also argue that we have not developed an activist, educated and
independent-minded citizen core that will devote time and energy in
reform advocacy and participation in public affairs due to the very
nature of this political culture.
This paper hopes to draw attention and interest to Romblon's dismal
socioeconomic and political conditions and encourage public discussion
and debate on their causes.
Historical Development
Romblon, situated practically in the center of the Philippine archipelago,
dates its modern historical evolution to the late 1500s when the Spaniards
first set foot on the islands. Up to 1635, the province was administered
by the secular clergy. In 1637, the Recollects established their foothold
in Romblon, San Agustin, Cajidiocan, Banton, Looc, Odiongan and Magdiwang.
Romblon was made part of Capiz in 1818. In 1853 it was organized into
a politico-military command administered from that province. This
setup lasted until the end of Spanish rule in 1898.
Civil government was established by the Americans on March 16, 1901
when Romblon became a regular province. But in 1907, Romblon reverted
back to its status as a sub-province of Capiz due to its insufficient
income.
On December 7, 1917, Romblon province was re-established under Act
No. 2724. Then on June 8, 1940, it was re-organized under Commonwealth
Act 581, with Tablas, Romblon, Banton and Sibuyan as its major towns.
The province fell into the hands of the Japanese on March 21, 1942
and was liberated on March 12, 1945. During this period, Romblon had
four special municipalities, namely, Tablas, Romblon, Sibuyan, and
the Maghali Islands. On January 1, 1947, it regained its status as
a province by virtue of Republic Act No. 38, which repealed Commonwealth
Act 581 and created the municipality of Sta. Fe.
From 1916 to the present, Romblon has had ten (10) representatives
in the Philippine legislature, four constitutionalists, two Spanish
regime and nine American era governors and, since 1947, nine provincial
chief executives.
As presently constituted, Romblon, is a fourth class province with
a lone congressional district. It consists of one third-class, five
fourth-class, nine fifth-class and two sixth-class municipalities,
a total of 17 towns.
The total number of barangays is 219, with Romblon capital town having
the highest number at 31 and San Jose the lowest at five.
Romblon's total land area is 1,355.90 square kilometers, representing
about 2.89 percent of the total land area of Southern Luzon. With
the recent division of the region into two - Calabarzon and Mimaropa,
with Romblon belonging to the latter - this percentage share in land
area has increased. The town of San Fernando in Sibuyan island occupies
the largest area with 190.10 square kilometers. and Concepcion the
smallest with only 23.3 square kilometers.
Demography
The May 1, 2000 census of the National Statistics Office (NSO) placed
the population of Romblon at 264,357 up by eight percent from the
1995 population of 244,654.
This figure is 2.24 percent of the region's total population. Again,
this percentage share has been increased with the recent spin-off
of Region IV into two. It is projected that Romblon's population would
have increased to 266,458 in 2002, 134,166 of which are males and
132,292 females.
There are 53,720 households with an average of five members each.
Approximately 195 Romblomanons live in a square kilometer area.
Between 1995 and 2000, the population grew by an average of 1.67 percent,
slightly higher than the average growth rate of 1.36 percent in the
1990 to 1995 period. Except for Sta. Maria and Concepcion, all of
Romblon's towns registered positive population increases in the 2000
NSO census. Alcantara and Calatrava towns registered the highest population
growth rates of 3.13 percent and 3.0 percent respectively.
Socioeconomic Profile
Family income and expenditures. The 2000 NSO family income and expenditure
survey placed the average income of a Romblon family at P73,396.00
a year.
This is deceiving because the average family income of Romblonanons
has been decreasing over the years while family expenditure is rising
fast.
Income is the most common measure of poverty but this is not all.
There are other poverty measurement standards that are now being used.
But using the income approach to measure the province's poverty level
tells us one thing: Romblonanons are getting poorer.
According to the NSO, a Romblonanon in 1997 needed P9,424 for his
nutritional requirements and other basic needs. This is called the
poverty threshold. In 2000, the amount went up to P11,005. Using this
approach, NSO data showed that the incidence of family poverty in
Romblon in 2000 was 55.2 percent. The figure was only 52.8 percent
in 1997. Of the total population in 2002, 66.5 percent was poor. The
1997 figure was only 59.8 percent. All these data point to Romblon
as the poorest province in the region and the fifth in the Philippines.
Labor and employment. Data from the NSO shows that Romblon's
labor force population as of April 2002 is 164,000. The labor participation
rate is 76.3 percent. The employment rate is 81.9 percent. The unemployment
rate of 18.1 percent means that of those eligible to work, close to
30,000 are jobless and cannot find jobs. Those who are employed but
working less than eight hours a day, (underemployed) account for 15.5
percent, or 22,650.
The continued migration of Romblonanons from Romblon is a fact. Romblon's
best and brightest are scattered all over the country and the world
because there is no stable future for them in Romblon. We are losing,
instead of gaining, from this phenomenon.
Industry and Tourism. Romblon is identified - but not famous
as is wrongly believed - for its marble deposits.
The province's chief product is coconut, not marble. Data from the
Department of Trade and Industry showed that it earned only P11.594
million in revenues from a production of 10,526 cubic meters in 2001.
This is a big drop from the product shipment of 14,770 cubic meters
in 2000. If you compare these figures with the "unofficial"
marble production of 30,000 cubic meters per month in 1991, you will
see why the marble industry in Romblon is such in a moribund state.
Considering that the province has an estimated 150 million metric
tons of marble deposits, are we not missing out on the opportunity
to fully develop our industrial capacity with marble processing as
the chief pillar of industry?
On the other hand, our coconut production is the largest among the
provinces of the region, except Quezon. According to NSO data, Romblon
produced 178,430 metric tons of copra in 2001. Question: Why has no
one ever thought of putting up a coconut oil mill in Romblon?
Tourism is another industry Romblon is missing out, despite the presence
of several natural and man-made attractions in the province and the
vaunted warmth and hospitality of the Romblomanons. There is no deliberate
effort on the part of the provincial government to harness the revenue-generating
potential of tourism as borne out by the fact that visitor arrivals
in 2001 was a mere 805, the lowest in the region. Aurora has no beaches
as beautiful as Romblon's but it attracted 2,814 tourists in the same
period.
Agriculture, forestry and fishery. Aside from coconut, rice is also
produced in Romblon but in quantity much less than the total estimated
provincial requirements which is over a million cavans a year.
In the second quarter of 2002, we produced 2,353 metric tons of rice
in 2,790 hectares of irrigated, 2,120 hectares of rainfed, and 517
hectares of upland rice farms. Our production of corn in 2001 was
a measly 32 metric tons.
In the third quarter of 2002, we harvested 1,004 metric tons of fish
while 6,672 metric tons were harvested in the whole year of 2001.
Our hog inventory as of the second quarter of 2002 was 57,120 heads;
24,928 heads of cattle; and 643,138 heads of chicken.
Health and nutrition. How healthy are the Romblomanons? The
health status of the province in 1997 is characterized by decreasing
birth, death and infant mortality rates, citing as measures the 24.6
percent crude birth rate, the 7.1 crude death rate, and the 39.2 percent
infant mortality rate for that year.
It estimated that these rates will be 23 percent, 7.0 percent, and
35.8 percent, respectively in the year 2000.
This claim is not entirely correct because the data is erratic. For
example, the infant mortality rate of 33.57 percent in 1990 went down
to 21 percent in 1991 and went up again to 26 percent in 1992. The
same is true with the crude death rate. In 1990, it was 6.07 percent,
went down to 4.18 percent in 1991 and rose again to 5.66 percent in
1993.
Also, using only these measures to determine the overall health of
the province is misleading. There are other factors that complete
the picture, such as maternal death rate, malnutrition rate, and access
to safe water.
The province's infant mortality rate was 47.2 percent in 1995, according
to the UP study. This means 47 dead for every thousand infants born.
The study also showed that 20.48 percent of the province's children
population are malnourished; 15 percent of the households have no
access to safe drinking water and 52.67 percent have no sanitary toilet.
A study of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute funded by the
UNICEF also showed that in 1998, Romblon's children, aged 6 months
to 5 years old, rank first in vitamin A deficiency. Of the number
of vitamin deficient children, 17.6 percent were vitamin A deficient
and 61.6 percent deficient and low in vitamin A.
The same study shows that the prevalence of anemia among children
is a high of 26.1 percent, 53 percent among pregnant women and 53
percent, the highest, among lactating mothers.
Education. I will use only available data in presenting the situation
in education.
In 1990, only 71 percent of Romblonanons over 25 years of age have
an academic degree.
In 1995, the teacher-pupil ratio was one teacher for every 32 elementary
pupils and one teacher to every thirty high school students. In 2002,
the teacher-pupil ratio in the elementary was 1:30 and 1:39 in high
school.
In that year, 50,604 elementary pupils enrolled while 18,354 went
to high school.
Based on the 1994 functional literacy, education and mass media survey,
the simple literacy rate in the province was a high of 96.56 percent.
Simple literacy means the ability of a person to read and write with
understanding.
In terms of functional literacy, which not only includes reading and
writing but also numeracy skills, the survey says that the province
is only 86 percent literate.
The population's illiteracy rate is low at 5.40 percent, but as a
measure of poverty incidence, the drop-out rate, the number of students
that drops out completely from the educational system, is very high,
around 30 percent.
Infrastructure. Bad infrastructure is universally acknowledged
as the single biggest deterrent to economic development. The UP study
says that provision of rural infrastructure is a central element to
a development strategy that will lead to faster poverty alleviation.
Rapid population increase, peace and order problem, poor investment
growth and business expansion, and high unemployment are mainly caused
by bad infrastructure.
If Romblon's economy is maldeveloped, blame it on our infrastructure
which requires no study for it to be described as sorely lacking.
As of 1999, Romblon's total road network is 1,303.56 kilometers, 85
percent of which is earth or gravel. Only 70 kilometers of this network
are asphalt and a mere 132.5 kilometers are concrete.
Of Romblon's 262.75 kilometer provincial road network, less than a
kilometer is asphalt and only 32 kilometers are concrete. The rest
is earth or gravel road.
The municipalities are better off. Of the 80.82 kilometer municipal
road network, four kilometers are asphalt, 49 kilometers are concrete
and the rest is earth or gravel.
We have 304 kilometers of national road, 215 kilometers of which are
earth or gravel; while 54.6 kilometers are asphalt and 33.8 kilometers
are concrete.
We have an airport that is all air because no plane calls on port.
When I was assigned in Alcantara sometime in 1989, the Philippine
Airlines used to fly to Tugdan three times a week. Now only kites
and sparrows fly in there. I will not mention the existence of a modern
helipad because it is not ours.
Being an island province, we depend much on seaports of which we have
three primary national ports, one each in Romblon, Odiongan and Brgy.
Carmen in San Agustin. The rest are municipal ports.
Next to transport infrastructure, electric power is Romblon's perennial
nightmare because of its short supply. The National Power Corporation
generates supply and distribute this through two electric cooperatives.
The Tablas Island Electric Cooperative (TIELCO) serves the electric
needs of Tablas Island and San Jose while the Romblon Electric Cooperative
(ROMELCO) supplies the capital town as well as Sibuyan Island.
For the islands of Banton, Concepcion and Corcuera, these towns have
NPC-provided generators. In our hometown, we get electrified from
5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. For the remaining
hours, I thank the moon and the stars for shining brightly on my hometown.
It seems a long way off before electricity becomes truly democratized
in Romblon. I am using old data here which shows that as of 2001,
only 15,861 households are connected to TIELCO and 6,885 are served
by ROMELCO. The rest or roughly 30,000 of Romblon's 53,720 households
are still woefully consigned to the dark ages.
As to telecommunications, Romblon is fast catching up. The major telecommunication
providers have presence in the province. Cellular phones can now be
used and we are finally hooked up to the global hub of internet communications.
I was unable to obtain updated data on the number of telephone lines
in the province including the proportion of households with radio
and television and the number of newspaper readers. These are important
factors as well.
Peace and Order Situation. Is it peaceful and safe in Romblon?
Maybe yes. In 2001, 166 crimes were recorded by the police, or an
average crime rate of 3.23 per month. Of this total, however, 102
were index crimes (murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, robbery
and theft). Compared to 2000, the volume of crime in 2001 has increased
by 32.8 percent but the resolution rate or crime solution efficiency
has only improved by 1.19 percent.
The use of illegal drugs is getting prevalent, notably in the larger
towns. It is public knowledge that a few enterprising citizens are
trying to set up illegal drug shops in the province.
Over the last few years, there has also been a noticeable presence
of dissidents belonging to the New People's Army (NPA). While primarily
confined to Tablas, the police consider the insurgents as a threat
to the peace, security and development of the province. The question
here is: "What are the causes that have led the insurgents to
consider penetrating Romblon when insurgency is on a downtrend nationwide?"
To be continued.
