Registered Business Establishments
The structure of the list of establishments registered with the Municipal Treasurer’s office in 2000 is shown in Chart 2, which summarizes Table 11.
The primary sector of Baras is the second biggest in terms of number of registered business establishments. This is composed of agricultural farms, which includes piggeries, poultry and crop farms. They do not include the lowland rice farms which are mostly unregistered but a main source of income for the common farmer with average landholdings of 1.02 hectares.
The secondary sector, which represents the smallest portion is composed of micro-scale to cottage scale home industries like bag manufacturing factory, metalcrafts, garments manufacturing, woodworks, construction, water purification, motorworks and water (deepwell) supply business. Usually these industries are located in backyards within the built-up area of the municipality, hence there is actually no separate industrial land utilization by this sector.
The biggest slice of the economic pie in terms of number of registered business activities belong to the tertiary sector. These firms, totalling 155, are mostly engaged in retailing, wholesaling, and other community and personal services. The municipality has retail stores, wholesale merchandise stores, pawnshops, bakeries, restaurants, real estate businesses, rural banks and other service establishments like school and agricultural supplies, a gasoline station, beauty parlors, repair shops, a hospital, a pharmacy and a jewellery shop. In terms of land use, however, this sector occupies only a fraction of the built-up area and mostly located within the poblacion area.
An analysis of the business taxes paid in the year 2000 (Table 12) shows that more than one third of the business revenues come from Pinugay, in spite of the fact that the number of registered firms is small compared to other barangays. Though this is not an exact indicator, it nevertheless underlines the importance of the Baras uplands in attracting big companies. Rizal is a far second when it comes to business tax collection by virtue of occupying majority of the poblacion area.
Members of the business sector pointed out the disadvantages of present layout of the barangay boundaries. Viewed on a map, the barangays radiate out like a fan from the poblacion up towards the north. Every barangay, therefore, except for Pinugay has an urban portion and a hinterland portion. This results in the uneven distribution community facilities like barangay halls and daycare centers. For whatever reasons, these barangays have placed them in or near the town proper. This situation creates problems of security and safety in the neglected areas.
Source: Baras Comprehensive Land Use Plan
