AS IF typhoon Frank was not enough, Iloilo City suffered another debacle when it was dropped from the list of most competitive cities in the Philippines as shown by the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) last year.

The biennial survey participated by major and emerging cities and business entities in the country measures the competitiveness or ability of each urban center to manage its resources and competencies to increase the prosperity of its people.

Iloilo City missed the top 7 most competitive mid-sized cities (non-metro urban centers with a population of more than 200,000) with a very slim margin of 0.03 percentage points.

Beating Iloilo City to draw were the cities of Cabanatuan, General Santos, Lucena, Olongapo, San Pablo, Tagum and Tarlac.

Of course we really cannot compare ourselves to other cities which have their own peculiarities and concerns. The best way of grinding the data is to compare our performance in the 2005 PCCRP – whether we improved or not in the last two years.

If we can recall, the city conducted a workshop relative to the 2005 PCCRP result with the aim of transforming our weak points and sustaining our potentials.

What has become of that workshop and other related activities meant to position the city as a competitive urban center? Did we really improve two years after?

In fairness to the city government, Prof. Jigger Latoza, the project coordinator of PCCRP in Iloilo, said the scores of Iloilo City in last year’s survey jumped compared to the 2005 PCCRP.

Latoza believes the workshop and other capability-building activities did improve the city’s standing in the eyes of investors. It only happened that there are new cities emerging in the country (thanks to politics) that don’t encounter the problems we are facing.

Nonetheless, we should take heed of the lessons of the PCCRP (which will be discussed in this corner when we have crunched the numbers and translated them in layman’s language) and move again. Our biggest foe is not other cities but ourselves.

Jerry’s bigote

Mayor Jerry Treñas vowed that no razor blade will touch his face until Iloilo City has been cleaned of the debris, mud and dust brought about by Frank’s flashflood.

Well, the mayor might be forced to wear a very long beard because a lot of the city’s nooks and crannies are far from clean even before Frank ravaged Panay Island.

Just like Miriam Q.

Who says that Pinoys imitate the American.

The tables are now turned as the Miss Universe bets of the USA in 2007 and 2008 both stumbled onstage while wearing their stunning evening gowns.

History repeats itself? More like 2008 Miss USA Crystle Stewart and 2007 Miss USA Rachel Smith are following the steps of Filipina beauty queen Miriam Quiambao who won 2nd runner up in the 1999 Miss Universe despite falling on stage.

Stewart and Smith both believe that stumbling on stage will earn them a quick ticket to the top five. Well, they can try again in another universe.

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