DORMITORIES must really be good business, because I see many of them being built all over Metro Manila. Unlike the condos that are for sale, dorms are for rent, therefore it is the more affordable alternative.
There is still a problem, however, because the rental of beds in these dorms are priced so high such that only white-collar workers could afford them.
I have a soft spot for dorms in my heart, because I stayed in campus dorms for most of my college days. The facilities were far from luxurious, but were good enough for students who did not have much to spend, including the food that were so “average”, because these were cheap.
I have the same idea for socialized dorms for blue collar workers, with food prices that they could afford. I think it would be a good idea for local government units (LGUs) to build these dorms as a business. These could be a good source of cash flow for them, aside from solving the housing shortages in their own jurisdictions.
Mr. Jorge Malig, a Filipino businessman, has already built many of these “worker’s dorms” using prefab components and repurposed container vans.
All over the country, there are many progressive businessmen like Mr. Malig who are ready and willing to go into public-private partnerships (PPP) with LGUs, to build public housing in the form of condos, apartments and dorms.
The PPP partners would even be more interested if the LGUs could provide the land where these projects could be built. Of course, they still have to look into the ROI (return on investment).
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VERTICAL FISH FARMS
Since many traditional fishing areas are now polluted and the availability of fish is now dwindling in many seas and oceans, it is now time to build vertical fish farms in buildings as Singapore is already doing.
The case of Singapore is different, because the problem there is the lack of available land for horizontal fish farms, hence the vertical option.
This is actually not a new idea, because single level fish tanks have been around for many years now. What is new however is the idea of multilevel fish tanks, and now, this is being done inside multistory buildings.
The innovation is not so much about stacking fish tanks on top of each other. The innovation is more about controlling the salinity and quality of the water used.
Many of us are questioning why we have to import rice, considering that we are supposed to be an agricultural country with plenty of land to be used for farming. Having said that, we should question ourselves why we are importing about 540 thousand metric tons of every year, considering that we have plenty of seas and oceans to fish from.
Mr. Jorge Malig and Mr. Ran Quijano are two enterprising Filipinos who are ahead of the pack in designing and building fish tanks for urban fisheries. Aside from creating jobs, their technologies could actually produce fish that are not only safer, but are also cheaper. Safer because the quality of the water is controlled, and cheaper because of the lower transport costs and lesser spoilage rate./PN
