Too early to say Tacloban bouncing back to life

I beg to disagree with the very optimistic mood projected by the article “Tacloban comes back to life” (Front Page, 11/21/13). It is very subjective and opinionated as it is based mainly on the impressions of a UN dignitary who knows very little about the local economy and its dynamics in Tacloban. A few banks opening and some vendors selling in almost empty streets are not proof of an economy that is bouncing up from disaster. Far from it.

I was in Tacloban last Nov. 26, and all I could see were unmistakable signs of a dead economy that is not about to rise—not in five years perhaps. Tacloban’s economy was fundamentally driven by commerce and trade. It had served as the buying station for copra and abaca from nearby municipalities—both of which have been devastated.

Most of the coconuts were either uprooted or stripped of their leaves, which can take five to 10 years to recover. So trading in this is out of the question. Abaca, on the other hand, will take at least a year.

Commerce has supplied the needs of thousands of government employees. But with the government offices destroyed and nonfunctional, many employees have left with their families for safer places. They will starve in Tacloban because there is nothing to buy. Many professionals—lawyers and medical practitioners—have joined the exodus to practice elsewhere. They can see no future in a dead city.

As for the student population, a huge market for business before the typhoon, they too, have disappeared with their families. They have enrolled somewhere else. Now the schools in Tacloban are empty.

This leaves Tacloban with the poor who now thrive on relief items as there are no visible means of getting an income. This is the reason why the likes of Gaisano and Robinsons here set no specific dates for reopening. The market is shaky, unstable—and they could easily become victims of another round of looting.

In other words, the signs of any recovery are nowhere in sight. It would be foolish to declare that the city is recovering because it ain’t.

—EMIL B. JUSTIMBASTE,

Pagtinabangay Foundation Inc.,

Ormoc City