MANY are excitedly waiting for the dry season — the time of year when schools are closed, young students and office workers are pining for the outdoors, and even their elders are given to gallivanting in the country’s beaches and hills, rivers and lakes.
Since we are near the equator, we do not have the four seasons of the northern and southern hemisphere, and so PAGASA can only talk of “summer-like” climate at this time, which can even be visited by tropical depressions and cyclones as what happened in the Visayas when “Agaton” released its fury, blowing giant mudslides that overwhelmed houses and killed more than a hundred residents.
It could be a happy coincidence that the onset of the dry season occurred at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown signs of being defeated locally, with the daily new cases only a couple of hundreds, and the healthcare system is no longer congested or overwhelmed with patients.
‘For tourism to succeed, a whole-of-government approach is needed, especially now that the economy is reopening and most nations are competing to sell their destinations to the world.’
This makes for an even favorable time for local tourism to reopen and reclaim its key role as the mover of local economies, at least in areas patronized by local and foreign tourists: Boracay, Cebu, Bohol, Baguio, La Union, and Palawan, to name a few.
When we talk of tourism, we always think of the DOT (Department of Tourism) but seldom give credit to the preliminary work needed to boost this industry: modern airports, ports, railways, aircraft and ferry boats which are handled by the Department of Transportation, and equally important are good and wide roads, strong bridges, and clean and flood-free streets which are the turf of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
With the hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and tourist buses, the above-mentioned items all comprise the nation’s tourism infrastructure, and countries in the region and in the whole world are competing to have the best of this facilities.
While DOTr Secretary Art Tugade had been at it since the beginning of the Duterte administration, DPWH Secretary Roger G. Mercado anticipated this dry season demand of the tourism industry that from October when he started, he continued the exemplary work of his predecessor, leading to a year-end accomplishment of 4,097 kilometers of roads constructed, maintained, widened, and rehabilitated. Senior Undersecretary Rafael Yabut provided the continuity in the supervision of these nationwide regional projects, from Secretary Mark Villar to Mercado, making the seamless transition possible.
For tourism to succeed, a whole-of-government approach is needed, especially now that the economy is reopening and most nations are competing to sell their destinations to the world.
