Gov. Arthur Yap is helping the tourism transport operators find solutions to their loan problems since payment of the loans is affected as the tourism industry is currently inactive due to the pandemic.
Yap revealed the move during the virtual press conference of the Philippine Travel Exchange (PhiTEx) on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.
Yap said he is pushing for the right financial instruments that can be extended to the tourism transport operators who have been hibernating as the tourism industry in Bohol remains dormant due to the pandemic.
“We can craft a financing instrument because tourism players need breathing a space or we can restructure their loans in 2-3 years so that hopefully in 3 or 5 years our tourism players would still be around,” he said.
The governor revealed that he earlier met with tourism transport operators of Bohol to discuss issues especially on loan payment.
The tourist transport operators complained that while the banks told them to hibernate, for the meantime, the banks, however, did
not stop from collecting the payments for their loans.
Moreover, Yap said that the provincial government is looking at the position of stepping into the situations and ask government financial institutions (GFI) such as the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to come up with a better mechanism that may extend the loan payment by two (2) to three (3) years. Another entity that can help the transport operators is the SB Corporation, the governor said.
The Bohol governor also bared that under the Bayanihan 2 law, the Gels were given P40 billion, which can be tapped to help the
tourism transport operators with their loans. These people, he said, cannot afford to take out another loan on top of their existing loans.
He also said that it would be best to give the tourist transport operators concessional rates as a means to help them cope with
the payment of their existing loans. Under the law, the governor said, Gils were given P40 billion, SB Corporation was given P6 billion.
It was pointed out by Yap that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) was given P10 billion to help businesses that have been severely impacted by the pandemic. He further asked the DOTr about the regulations how the affected transport sectors can get some financial assistance.