• INTRODUCTION

 

• Background and overview

 

     The Castilla Municipal Tourism Plan shall set a direction for tourism development of the municipality that for a long time have not been given focus and attention; except for the annual celebration of Unod Festival done for five (5) years already every October.  In fact, the Municipal Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) and the Executive-Legislative Agenda (ELA) do not mention any defined strategy nor program and action steps for tourism development.  Both documents just mention untapped assets but have never included tourism programs and projects in the priority list of programs for municipal development that should redound to jobs creation and income generation – bring about alleviation of poverty in the municipality.

 

     The dwindling financial support to the celebration of Unod Festival, the fast economic development of other municipalities in the Province of Sorsogon through tourism, the encouragement of the Department of Tourism through Tourism Awareness Seminar, and the mandate of R.A. 9593 made local leaders realize the significance of tourism industry’s growth and development to trigger economic activity.  Not just to showcase and celebrate a festival, the LGU decided to venture into tourism industry development and proposed to the Department of Tourism in 2012 the municipal tourism development planning as part of the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process (GPBP), formerly called Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB), for implementation in 2013.

 

     The approved budget of PHP 800,000.00 for tourism development from BUB was only downloaded in August, 2013 – its implementation is extended to March, 2014.  The financial assistance through BUB covers assessment and validation of tourism potentials, site development planning, capacity building trainings, and the crafting of the Municipal Tourism Plan.  This plan, therefore, is a required output of the financial assistance from the Department of Tourism through the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process.

 

     Castilla’s vision of development does not clearly mention tourism.  However, the same vision looks into “socio-economic stability under the spirit of social justice and equity” that tourism development may anchor on – there will only one vision of development for the municipality, however; the goals of tourism shall be defined.

 

    The LGU’s mission reflected in its CLUP and ELA emphasizes good governance, values formation of its people, and sound financial    management.  In both source documents,

the goals for economic sector development spell out the following without any identifiable item where tourism development may  anchor on:

 

• Optimize marine productivity

• Promote private investments on commerce and agro-industry

• Increase the on-farm and off-farm productivity and income

 

      The 3rd objective of its economic sector development, however, states:  “To develop an LGU–managed Coastal Ecotourism enterprise”.  This objective, therefore, shall be given priority in the overall tourism development process but has to be streamlined to make certain the participation of the private sector and local communities for sustainability.

 

     Tourism industry is a promising economic sector in Castilla because of the unique natural and cultural assets and potentials present.  It is a key to economic development and shall play a major role in achieving the vision. The fantastic waterfalls in Canjela, the calm and clear waters of Nasipit Estuary, the beautiful Malawmawan island and the vast farmlands in most barangays will certainly lure foreign and domestic tourists if developed into globally competitive tourism products.   

 

     There had been tourist arrivals in the municipality in the previous years, but there were neither records kept nor reports submitted to either the provincial Tourism Office or the Department of Tourism Regional Office.  It is important to note that one of the indicators of the influx of tourists to the municipality is the establishment of accommodation facilities happening in the last few years, like; the Laurenaria’s Resort in San Isidro, Vince Place in Cumadcad, and Tres Reyes Inn in Cumadcad.  The Arellano’s in Poblacion plans to convert their ancestral house and farm into a Farm Lodge for tourists stay – a venture into agritourism.

 

     The National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) 2011-2016 aims to develop a highly competitive, environmentally and socially responsible tourism that delivers more widely distributed income and employment opportunities.  It sets a logical framework to LGUs and tourism stakeholders in planning, development and policies. Castilla being a municipality of Sorsogon is part and parcel of ALMASOR which is one of the top five TDAs in the Central Philippines.  Tourist arrival to ALMASOR increased in the last five years, and targets 600,000 or more foreign tourist in 2016, 50% of 1.2M foreign tourist arrival to be realized by the Bicol Tourism Cluster. 

 

     The Castilla Municipal Tourism Plan is a multi-sectoral output that sets a strategy for economic development with tourism as a main driver.  It shall provide a framework for decision making that will allow the LGU to address with confidence the next six years and build the capabilities needed for sustainable inclusive tourism growth. Thus, this plan addresses the primary concerns of tourism product development, infrastructure development, and governance that are crucial to sustainable tourism growth and development.

 

     This plan is intended to develop Castilla a destination in the Province of Sorsogon and in ALMASOR, and provide an overall framework to guide the development of the sector in the municipality and specifically the plan aims to:

• set the goal and future direction of tourism development;

• guide the various stakeholders on the key areas for tourism development, related tourism facilities and services, and support infrastructure; and

• specify the roles and responsibilities of key players, institutional arrangements, and resource requirements.

 

Location, area, boundaries

 

Castilla is a 3rd Class municipality of the Province of Sorsogon located 12050’ 17” to 1302’35” North latitude and 123043’58” to 123052’56” East longitude; bounded in the north by the Municipality of Manito of Albay Province, on the south by Sorsogon Bay, on the west by the Municipality of Pilar, and east by Sorsogon City.

 

It is composed of 34 barangays ( Table 1 ) with a total land area of 18,620.30 hectares – 8.71 % of the land area of the entire province. From among the 34 barangays, 11 are lowland, 13 are coastal, and 10 are upland.  There are two urban barangays in the municipality, Cumadcad and Poblacion.  Cumadcad is a lowland barangay with the highest population density, and Poblacion is a coastal

barangay with the 4th highest population.  Barangay Milagrosa, situated along the Maharlika Highway has the largest land area of 1,343.90 hectares, and Barangay Saclayan situated along Sorsogon Bay is the smallest with only 120 hectares.

 

Poblacion Castilla is 42 kilometers from Legazpi City and 26 kilometers from Sorsogon City.  However, Cumadcad which is the center of trade and commerce of the municipality is, more or less, 29 kilometers from Legazpi City and Sorsogon City.  Cumadcad is about 573 kilometers from Manila. 

 

1.2.3    Population and culture

 

Based on the Municipal Survey of 2006 ( Table 2 ), the municipality has a population of 51,076, with population growth rate at 0.8%.  Castilla has a total of 9,870 households with an extraordinarily big household size due to high rate of dependency where married children still stay with parents.  Its total dependency ratio is 86.57%, young dependency ratio of 79.97%, and old dependency ratio is 6.60%.

 

Among the 34 barangays of the municipality, Cumadcad posts the highest population more than the population of the town center, Barangay Poblacion.  Cumadcad is the center of governance, and trade and commerce of the municipality, and is linked through road networks to more barangays - registered the highest density of 10,481-persons/sq km. Average urban population density is 7,012-persons/sq km. while rural population density is at an average of 2,620 persons/sq km.. Barangay Poblacion is only 4th , San isidro is 3rd , and Macalaya is 2nd in population size. Macalaya, a coastal barangay along the Ticao Pass, is 2nd to Cumadcad in population size.

 

Table 3 shows that the male population predominates by 51.30% over the female population which corresponds to a sex ratio of 21 males for every 20 females. There are 26,866 people of the working age group (15-64 years old) which is roughly 52.6% of the total population.  The child and youth group (0-14 years old) made up over 40% of the population while those falling under the dependent population category (below 15 and over 64 years old) were almost half (46.40%) of the total population.  In terms of sex structure, the male outnumbered the female in every age group/category.

 

The Roman Catholics predominates other religious sects by 97.79%.  The remaining 2.21% belongs to either Aglipay, Iglesia ni Cristo, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, or Seventh Day Adventist.

 

The 2006 survey found out that the population from 10 years and above is 95.31% literate.  It also showed that rural barangays have higher literacy rate than the urban barangays.  High literacy rate in the rural areas is primarily due to the presence of elementary schools in all barangays, and the establishment of secondary schools in clusters of barangays.  It is worthwhile to note that the school age population takes only 62.22% in-school while 38.00% is out-of-school.

 

95% of its population speaks Sorsogonon while the remaining 5% speaks either Daragueno, Legazpeno, etc.  Sorsoganon is a blend of Bicol, and Waray.  The Daragueno and Legazpeno dialects come to mix with the Sorsogonon due to trade and commerce where goods from the areas are primarily brought to Daraga or Legazpi.  Majority of the population that takes tertiary education goes to Daraga and Legazpi City.

 

The Castillanon family is close knit the reason why its dependency ratio is very high.   Extended family is evident in majority of barangays, and high in rural barangays than in urban areas.

 

Like other bicolanoes, Castillanons are very hospitable.  This is evident during barangay fiesta celebration when families prepare food for visitors, even to nonrelatives or friends.

 

1.2.4      Topography

 

  The municipality has a varied and distinctively irregular topographic landscape. While the northern and southern portions, along the coast are mountainous and hilly, the rest is flat to rolling lands. Likewise, Castilla has only one type of soil, the Castilla clay loam suited to planting palay, corn, various root crops, abaca, coconut, and fruit bearing trees.

 

1.2.5      Economy

 

The 2011 State of Local Government Performance Report  (Annex 1) shows that the LGU’s performance in financial management, especially in tax collection, is relatively high.  However, its state of family income is one of the eight (8) core development challenges.  In this report, the income per capita is very low and the magnitude of families living below poverty threshold is too high – poverty incidence is alarming.

 

Low family income results to high incidence of:

• out-of-school children;

• Child labor;

• Poor nutrition;

• Inability to access decent shelter and basic utilities;

• environmental and health problems;

• illegal activities;

• crimes against persons and properties

• biodiversity loss

 

 Because of the very closely-knit family structure, crime against person and properties is reasonably low. 

 

As a primarily agricultural area with 14,749 hectares or 79.21 % of its total land area are devoted to crop production, but the support to agriculture sector is lowest among the three major sectors of the municipality.

 

     The Entrepreneurship, and Business and Industry are 2 sectors needing institutionalization of a business-friendly environment by improving the quality of licensing and the provision of direct support services to business, especially those categorized as micro, small and medium enterprises ( MSMEs).

There are challenges, also, in the Support to Fishery Services. There is a need to sustain engagement and focus intervention to the mobilization of the Fisheries and Resource Aquatic Council; improvement of infrastructure support for the fishery sector; improvement of credit facilitation services to the fisher folks; adequate production support services; assistance to research and development and improvement of market development services for the fishery sector. In Support to Agriculture Sector, greater and similar interventions are essential.

The data from available plans and the 2006 Municipal Survey shows that the economic driver of the municipality is in its micro, small, and medium enterprises engaged in trading and not from agriculture.  Although the agriculture sector needs labor force, the quality of employment is below standard and is seasonal.  This includes the fishery sector that cannot really employ ten or more services needed at a time.

 

1.2.6    Tourism Climate

 

      The overall climate in tourism development is significantly high because of the public’s awareness of the industry in other places through the tri-media.  A good number of Castillanons get information about tourism and tourism industry from local, national and international television programs. Moreover, the middle and upper income groups of the population take time, during long holidays, to visit other places especially popular local destinations like Bulusan and Matnog where expense is relatively low. 

 

     Spot survey in so many areas, especially where attractions are, residents are enthusiastic about opening their areas to visitors.  Residents await the interventions of the LGU and the Department of Tourism to develop their areas in tourism that will redound to government putting up infrastructure projects for better access and connectivity of their barangay.

 

      The enthusiasm and willingness of Barangay officials and residents to tourism development of their areas is so high.  This was evident during the Tourism Awareness Seminar attended by mostly Barangay Chairmen and residents of

barangays with tourism potentials where the majority of them aired their interest, willingness to help through bayanihan, and are ready to put up equity should the attraction and potential be developed.   A very high percentage of Barangay officials are aware that tourism may bring about positive development that will mean livelihood generation – income opportunities for their constituents.

           

     The LGU officials, from the local chief executive, are very eager to develop tourism industry.  In fact, majority wants tourism to be started immediately even without planning.  The committee chair on tourism in the Sangguniang Bayan works with the technical working group in assessment and validation of tourism potentials, strategic planning seminar-workshop, and in the formulation of this plan.

           

      The Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process in Tourism really had a good impact in the tourism development of Castilla.  There had been a creation of the Local Tourism Council ( See Annex 2 for the List of Officers and Members), creation of the Technical Working Group ( TWG) for Tourism Development, Sites assessment and validation, capacity building of TWG on tourism and tourism industry, creating tourism products and tour packages and strategic planning for the crafting of the municipal tourism plan. Consultation meetings and conferences had been conducted.  The participation of the Sangguniang Bayan

Committee on Tourism, especially with its committee chairperson, is so significant that needed legislative issues and concerns may be given immediate and appropriate attention and action.