EDSA didn't fail us, we failed EDSA

The whole thing has been brewing for a few days already, and my mother has been in and out of the house. Been hearing about the goings on from adult conversations in the house and the rest of the neighborhood. Marcos cheated in the recently concluded snap elections. The minister of defense and the chief of the armed forces have resigned. People are gathering at EDSA to protect them, Cardinal Sin has called for more warm bodies.

That morning, my mother was talking to several grown-ups in the neighborhood (I was 12) - she was renting a jeepney to ferry whoever wanted to join her at EDSA. Next thing I knew, everyone was getting ready to go. I wanted to go with them, but this time my mother told me I couldn't for things could get ugly. Odd, for I have been to countless rallies with her - several times not only as a participant but also as a performer along with my friends who belonged to my mother's community theater group, the Workshop for Creative Survival.

When one Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, I was turning 10 the following month at the time, I remember being at all these rallies all over Metro Manila - I remember Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, Plaza Miranda, I remember WOMB (Women for the Ouster of Marcos and Boycott), Inang Laya, the smoke-filled (mostly courtesy of my mother's cigarettes) Hiraya Gallery mezzanine office where the cool people hung out (and where I was a child would alternately try to pick something from the conversations or just be amused by the animated characters around the table). That was where I, while doodling on Tito Bobi's desk overheard a story about a woman who was captured by the military, her vagina was carved out with a hunting knife by the same soldiers who gang-raped her earlier. The story was told by a photo journalist.

Back to February 25, 1986 - not this time, I watched that jeep full of Road 7, Project 6 residents leave with a heavy heart. Whatever was happening in EDSA, it was huge, I thought, and I wanted so much to be part of it.

It wasn't as easy to follow goings-on then as it is today. There were only five TV channels available - 2. 4, 7, 9 and 13. Broadcast was erratic. The radio was on too and almost everyone in the neighborhood was tuned in to Radio Veritas.

I remember getting scolded several years earlier for toying around with our stereo. After playing my Voltes V 45 vinyl a hundred times, I got bored and thought I'd put on whatever I could get my hands on in our collection of records. I picked out one with an interesting cover and put it on in full volume. Turned out to be one of those subversive recordings - it was Martial Law, and people have been arrested or made to disappear or killed for less. My grandmother immediately turned the stereo off.

I remember wondering about who Carpio was, and why every teenager in the neighborhood was afraid of him. "Pasok na tayo, Carpio na..." I would hear the "tambays" in the neighborhood say. Ahh, curfew.

Suddenly, there it was: Marcos Flees. It's over, and the real winner of that election, Corazon Aquino, would now sit as the first ever woman president of the Republic of the Philippines. I remember - I could literally feel the country's collective sigh of relief, a nation's victory over tyranny - I could now play that Inang Laya or any other album in our collection.

And my grandmother, along with myself and the rest of the family, could now sleep better at night not having to worry if my mother will make it back home after a rally or a play or whatever other activity she may be involved in that, during the Martial Law years, could be considered subversive.

Fast forward 30 years later, and Bongbong Marcos, unrepentant son of the tyrant that EDSA rid us of, is threatening to make it a step closer to being back in Malacanang. There are young people clamoring for the return to the "Golden Years" of Martial Law. Duterte proclaims without batting an eyelash: I am a dictator, so what? And a lot of us applauded him.

These days, Cory's being lambasted for her supposed lackluster performance as the first post-martial law president. Try hurdling six coup attempts while running a transition government.

The prevailing sentiment is this: EDSA, the People Power Revolution, did nothing to uplift the lives of Filipinos, that it failed us.

But, no, EDSA didn't fail us. It gave us what it was supposed to give us - freedom. It's what we did with that freedom that failed us. And if the current trends remain 'til election day this May, we're just about to fail ourselves again.

VANI: a better fighter, pound-for-pound, than Manny Pacquiao

Just like any other kid, he's made some bad decisions here and there. But like a man, so to speak, he owned up to them, learned from them, moved on and came out a better person every time.

I can't imagine him running for public office, taking an oath to serve his country, but showing up only for a few days while receiving a salary for three years. That would be wrong, and he won't do something like that.

He steps onto the ring not knowing who his opponent will be motivated only by his conviction that all men are created equal and all men must have equal rights, regardless of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation.

And these fights he fought not because he stood to earn millions in prize money, pay-per-view buys, endorsements, etc. Nah, he fights to defend his rights as a human being, he steps onto the ring not only to fight his fight but to fight for the rights of others like him. Now there's a real fighter.

And for that, Vani, my gay son, is a much better fighter, pound-for-pound, than Manny Pacquiao.

Related articles:
Are you gay?
Father and his gay son
Be and let be

I want to ride my bicycle (but the Mayor won't let me)

Just like many others, I too do double takes when a flashy coupe zooms by, yield to imposing "get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-run-you-over" SUVs and once in a while find myself daydreaming of driving one of those.

I personally drive a 25-year old mini van. A Toyota Liteace which just came out of a car hospital - for just like its owner, its joints needed some lubricating, get its bearings... repacked, re-greased, replaced. While in there, I thought it might as well get an oil change. It's running so well now and i'm very happy. it breezed through this morning's emission test. But in those daydreams, I find myself wanting to sell the van, add to it to get a car that's at least a few years younger, with an engine that's a bit bigger, stronger.

A prospect presented itself - a Chevrolet Trailblazer, just about a decade old, reasonably priced. Sell the van, then scrounge up more to cover the cost. What usually bursts the bubble for me is this - how much gas would that V6 engine eat up for every engine start, uphill climb, occasional trips to San Juan, La Union or Manila, and would our family's carbon footprint be justified?

I don't think so. See, it's not like the van's 1800-or-so cc cannot provide for our needs, or even my need as an artist who often does location shoots from way up north to a bit down south on various, often unforgiving terrain. The Liteace has taken us to highest point in our country's highway system, up to Sagada and Besao and even over that treacherous under-repair road to Batad, Ifugao last year. Sure the van came back home to Baguio with a few added "sound effects": more squeaks and thuds, but nothing the Manong down the road can't fix with an adjustable wrench, WD40 and few taps here and there.

An 1800, even with some 6 or 7 passengers on board, runs comfortably at 100 kph along the sleep-inducing TPLEX. That V6 can surely go much faster, but who needs 120, 130, eeeek, 160(!) when the country's superhighways pegs the limit at 100 kph anyway?

Besides, I can hardly afford to keep the van gassed up - which brings me closer to the title of this article (pardon the long intro and the digression/s)...

...see, climate change is upon us, believe it or not. Excessive man-caused carbon emissions at the top of the suspects list. And while the van sevices the whole family, a lot of times I find myself driving that van alone. Yes, that van that's designed to accommodate as many as 9-passengers, okay, maybe 7 more comfortably. Sometimes on long drives to the lowlands, more often to downtown Baguio. I cringe a little when I get caught, nay, WHENEVER I HELP CAUSE TRAFFIC in the city's Central Business District and realize how much space that van is taking up and how much carbon is spewed out onto the atmosphere to bring me, one person, to my destination. Destinations that, while may be quite physically challenging for my middle-aged knees to walk, are easily accessible by bicycle.

So the past few weeks, my SUV daydreams have been replaced by ones with me wearing a helmet pedaling to town. That's certainly more affordable than an SUV with a V6 engine, and I wouldn't have to sell the van. And in a city battling with worsening vehicular traffic and air pollution, a bike makes sense.

But the city government of Baguio, under the leadership of the Hon. Mauricio Domogan, Mayor of Baguio City, is the bubble-burster his time - bikes have just been banned not only along Session Road, but in the whole Central Business District.

While other cities have been doing all they can to accommodate and encourage cyclists to help mitigate vehicular traffic and lessen emissions, Baguio once again takes a step backward with this ban. Just like it does whenever the city condones environmental destruction in the name of development (read: commerce, and that isn't always equals development).

Ahhh, to borrow lines from Freddie - I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike... but Domogan won't let me.

Photo lifted from the comment of Jp Leung on a post on my page 

Kung handa ka nga sa Rehimeng Duterte

Ayun, matapos ang ilang beses na paroo't parito, tatakbo si Rodrigo Duterte, Mayor ng Davao na kilala bilang tigasin, matapang, walang-takot na amining handa siyang pumatay ng ganun-ganun lang, nang hindi napapatunayan ng korte, "beyond reasonable doubt," kung ang isang tao nga'y nagkasala basta't sa mata ni Duterte ay dapat na nga siyang itumba.

Ang daming masaya sa deklarasyong ito, mga naniniwalang siya nga ang magsasalba sa bayan mula sa katiwalian, sa korupsyon, sa kriminalidad, sa kahirapan at iba pang sakit ng lipunang Pilipino.

Ang sarap nga namang panoorin sa TV, nakakaaliw, kung ang presidente ng isang bansa ay nagmumura, bumubuga ng mga katagang pang action movie na walang sinabi sina Julio Valiente, Leon Guerrero, Asiong Salonga atbp. sa bagsik ng mga salita.

Handa ka nga ba sa isang Rehimeng Duterte?

Ingat ka sa lansangan, lalo na siguro kung lalaki kang mahaba ang buhok, gulanit ang maong - alam mo yun, yung sa mata ng karamihan e kung hindi man tulak e gumagamit ng droga. Baka kasi mapagkamalan kang yun na nga, tulak, o baka may kamukha kang wanted na kriminal dahil isang bala ka lang. Pwedeng-pwede mangyari yan pre sa ilalim ni Duterte - sa iyo o sa kahit sino. 'Di ba't yun ang nagustuhan mo sa kanya, kung paano niya diumano nilinis ang Davao?

Teka, siya nga ba mismo ang pumisil sa gatilyong kumitil sa buhay ng ilang "suspected criminals" sa Davao? Hindi naman siguro. Ilang taong nabigyan ng baril, ng kapangyarihang kumitil ng buhay - paano kaya naiseguro na yung iniwan nilang bangkay sa bangketa e tunay ngang nagkasala? At kung nagkasala man, buhay nga ang dapat nilang bayad sa pagkakamaling iyon? Meron din kayang mga nagkaatraso lang sa isa sa mga tauhang ito?

At dahil labag sa batas hindi lamang ng Pilipinas kundi ng kahit saang sibilisadong lipunan ang ganyang uri ng hustisya, handa ka rin bang ibasura ang konstitusyon, ang batas? Dahil kung payag kang gawin ito sa Davao, payag kang gawin ito sa buong bansa, at malamang ay payag ka ring balewalain ng Rehimeng Duterte ang iba pang mga batas kung sa tingin niya ay hadlang ang mga ito sa kanyang uri ng hustisya.

Ingat ka rin sa pagpuna sa isang tulad ni Duterte, sakaling mahalal nga siya (salamat sa boto mo), kung hindi man siya, ay baka masamain ito ng mga taong bibigyan niya ng mga baril at kapangyarihang mamaril.

Handa ka nga bang sabihin na karahasan ang paraan para ibangon ang ating bayan?

Ako kasi, hindi e.

The outing of Henry Sy and his empire

After all that has transpired, I must admit that deep inside me I still believed that they, Henry Sy and his family, still possessed a bit of sense of decency. Until Banco de Oro, a Sy-owned bank, came up with these:

Somebody up there in the Sy empire thought of this, somebody up there gave the go-signal to the advertising agency to go ahead and explore this idea, somebody up there must really believe in what these ads stood for: a self-centered, uncaring, apathetic existence is the ideal, and caring for things other than one's self and own interests is laughable and indeed must be mocked. Shame on all of you: from the Sys to the advertising professional prostitutes who must have swallowed their own sense of morality for that fat BDO paycheck.
Despite all these...

1. SM City Baguio's attempt to destroy a forest for a parking building and the questionable and immoral way in which they gave this attempt a semblance of legality and morality
2. The way SM City Baguio corrupted several government institutions, several government personnel, journalists, people from the community, et al to advance their selfish interests
3. The way SM City Baguio made a mockery of our legal institutions when they defied a court order (a Temporary Environmental Protection Order) and killed decades-old full-grown trees and having their battery of highly-paid lawyers justify the act by twisting the facts, the law and common sense
4. The way SM City Baguio, through its henchman Bien Mateo, shrewdly and deceptively pretended to listen to the clamor, the plea of the people to set aside their selfish interest in Baguio and save as much of one of the city's fast disappearing remaining forest covers for the benefit of its people, its children, its future by presenting a re-designed plan that would save all of the remaining trees on Luneta Hill, only to once again mock the trust that the convenors of the protest movement sincerely offered and went ahead with the killing of the practically all of the remaining trees in the area
5. Etc., etc., etc.

... Still, I hoped, believed that they somehow, yes, like most human beings do, that they still had some sense of decency, of compassion, or responsibility and that one day Henry Sy, or Hans, or Teresita, or this Bien Mateo or one Jansenn Pe will wake up and realize the immorality of their expansion plan and stand up for the good of the community, the rights of Baguio's people and her children to a healthy and safe environment - that they will realize that it can't always be just about money, something they already have so much of to last for as long as they live and for many generations to come.

But no. With the above ads, SM and its minions and henchmen just outed themselves: they are indeed the epitome of greed, of what is wrong in the world today, of bad, and yes, of evil.

And as long as there are Sys lording it over this country, and as long as we continue to empower them to do so, there is no hope for this country.

Henry Sy doesn't care, SM doesn't care and BDO will always find ways to make money, even at the expense of others.

Shame on you, shame on you!

#BoycottSM
#BoycottBDO
#BoycottEverythingSY

#16 Road 7, Project 6, Quezon City

That yellow structure on the right side of the frame, directly behind the basketball hoop, that's where I grew up - #16 Road 7, Project 6, Quezon City. That entire row of houses running the length of the basketball court - plus a few more meters on both sides, all of that's #55, actually. But my grandmother didn't like that number, so she just decided on her own that our house would be #16.

The house wasn't always like that. Back then, it was wooden, elevated high enough to avoid getting flooded during the rainy season. A creek behind the house rises dramatically during downpours. We had a "silong," under the house, which eventually was turned into three small apartments. When the "silong"was first walled off, an uncle, a bachelor at the time, used it as a pad. That's where I spied one morning that he had a girl with him. They would marry eventually and live in one of the "apartments."

Road 7 wasn't concreted back then - the asphalt surface was where I learned to ride a bike, skinned my knee countless times, drew a sun on when clouds threatened rain...

Road 7 had a unique light. Sunrise came from the rice fields across the creek, it would enter the window of the kitchen, the grills making a nice pattern on the floor. I took that light with my breakfast of diluted Blend 45 cup of coffee, into which I dipped my pandesal with Dairy Creme.

With the harsher late morning light that gets harsher towards noon comes Kulot, the taho vendor. Pre-lunch snack. If mom was in the country, Kulot would usually get a mouthful for shouting too loud and waking her up. She's up, I'll ask for some change for my taho. The puto vendor usually comes soon after Kulot leaves.

At the two in the afternoon, most of #55 (and #16, too) would be asleep, siesta time while the rest of the neighborhood would either be idling at any one of the few sari-sari stores, reading the week's comics (Hilaga, Holiday, Funny), or playing bingo near the row of houses near the balon (where that group of #55 houses in that area get their water) surrounded by kangkong and talbos ng kamote. For me and my gang of friends, that meant getting out our panungkit and net bags and off we would go to explore the rest of Project 6 and nearby barangays (Pag-asa, Vasra, Sanville, Carmel, etc.) for generous homeowners with fruit tree in their front yards. Depends what time of the year it was, the loot would either be or a combination of mabolo, santol, makopa, kaimito, duhat, avocado...

If we're not in the mood for fruits, then off to Alley 11 we'd go to buy fish hooks and nylon strings and the panungkit becomes a fishing pole. There's always dalag to be caught in that creek behind our house. If we're not too lazy to just sit at the banks, we'll chop down banana trunks, skewer them together with bamboo and the resulting raft can take us all the way to the public market area downstream.

The basketball court wasn't always a basketball court. We called it the "playground," the space wasn't cemented and that's where we ran around to our hearts' delight - all morning, all afternoon, in the evening we took over the street when there were less cars passing. There were monkey bars there when I was little, rusty, missing a joint here and there which was a castle, a fort, a car, a space ship, a house or anything our imagination wanted it to be.

One day, the main road where the jeeps passed, Road 3 underwent major repairs. The asphalt surface was removed in preparation for its concreting. It took a while for the cement trucks to come, and while the workers prepared Road 3 for concreting, #55 Road 7 (along with the lone #16 house) prepared areas of the house that may need concreting. And after weeks of digging, removing, grading, and whatever else needed to be done before concreting, the trucks came - and Road 7 was ready. It didn't matter what time it was that they poured concrete, we were there, the whole neighborhood each one with their own bucket to catch the excess cement that was pushed to the side when they leveled the surface.

If you wanted your kitchen or bathroom floor concreted, you caught a bucket-load, ran as fast as you can to pour that at your own construction project at home, and ran back to get more.

The concreting of Road 3 took a while, but by the end of it, a lot of the homes had concrete walls, floors, the pathways from the road side to maze of homes in the area were cemented too, and the playground... that was the time it was tuned into a concreted basketball court.

We were one of the first to have a television set in the neighborhood, and prime time TV meant having heads at our window in the evening. If my banig wasn't set up yet for the night, then I'd sometimes let some of the neighbors inside the house to watch a Friday special, Piling-piling Pelikula. At the end of whatever it was we watched, everyone would spill out onto the street to talk about it. Us kids would reenact some of the notable scenes such as the zombies in Panday running after Bentot Jr. We'll take turns playing Bentot Jr.

There was Mang Rudy, the handyman whom you called for anything from dog bites to changing the fuse to fixing a leaking pipe.

There was Mang Frank and his taxicab, Kuya Dan and his well-maintained owner-type jeep.

There was Mang Inggo and his vegetable garden.

There was Mang Ipe and his sari-sari store and Pool Table (or pul, chips instead of billiard balls on a square table with holes at the corners where you shoot the chips in).

There are more memories, I can actually leave this blog entry open and just keep on adding as they come, and I wouldn't be able to really say, "that's it, all 14-15 years' worth, give or take a few months after we moved to a new house in 1988 whenever I'd run back to #16 Road 7 whenever life makes an unexpected turn.

Our house, where I swear I saw elves climbing the sink, out the kitchen window and down the creek, was sold some time in the nineties. And the new owners tore it down and built that concrete multi-storey structure.

I believe that's when I stopped visiting Road 7, Project 6, Quezon City.

It's hard to see what the picture above actually shows - the dull gray of the road all, the imposing roof over the basketball court, and the walls. All I see is my wonderful childhood.

Duterte, Marcos, genocide and why I'm very, very afraid

Someone I know has already admitted to slowly falling for the rhetoric, she adds though - "Ng slight." She's not alone, and that scares me.

Duterte had no problem saying in public that he's more likely to be jailed for murder and genocide than plunder. I will not steal, but I will send people to their death, maybe even entire groups of people. Why should he worry? Hardly anybody thought there was anything wrong with that.

Although he did also say that if elected to a higher office (read: the presidency), he will do all he can to restore the death penalty. So I'm not sure if the murder/genocide will be State-sanctioned under his presidency, or if it will take the character of the infamous/famous Davao Death Squad, which sent criminals, both petty and hardened, ALLEGEDLY, to their graves. The youngest victim of this vigilante group was said to be 14 years old.

It scares me to think that by next year, the most powerful man in this country has no problem having a person who has not been proven without reasonable doubt to have committed a crime... killed, and that a lot of us are applauding that. Are we ready to believe that to turn things around in this country, the people need to be afraid, not empowered, but very, very afraid? Are we really ready to just cheer to have a president who promises genocide?

And here comes Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. with, "what am I to apologize for?" when asked about his father's regime. The regime that caused the disappearance or death of thousands, that suppressed our freedom, the regime that made a whole nation live in fear while those in power and their cronies plundered, murdered with impunity.

Every day, social media is filled with "Buti pa noong panahon ni Marcos" posts, memes, videos, etc., a brazen Orwellian attempt to erase the horrors of Martial Law from our collective memory

Marcos is being touted as a possible Duterte running mate. It's gaining ground. And I'm afraid, very very afraid.

Macondo, Benguet

The sun has yet to come out in Baguio for the month of July. It's the 16th already, 25th anniversary of the devastating earthquake that brought the city down to its knees in 1990.

Monsoon season in Baguio - time for afternoons by the fireplace, power interruptions, landslides and moldy clothes. We just moved to a new house - much smaller than the one we were staying in the last couple of years, but this feels more like home. We lost a huge yard, gained a fireplace. We can always plant in pots, but the fireplace, ahhh the fireplace. Mom & Pop closed down their grocery store, but kept the flower shop. They still sell firewood but there has been no deliveries the past couple of weeks. So we've had to make do with the dozens of boxes we've emptied trying to settle into this new house.

We've lived in practically all major areas of Baguio since we decided to settle here in 1996. Suello, Campo Sioco, QM, Gibraltar, Gen. Luna, Leonila Hill, Aurora Hill, Asin Road, Quezon Hill, Tacay Road, Mines View, Tam-awan, back to Asin and back to Mines View.

Once we were offered to squat on a parcel of land up Mt. Sto. Tomas. For P5,000 or so we could've built anywhere in a specific area. But we didn't want to free ourselves from rent that way. We could've probably made a killing the last few months at the height of the La Presa gold rush. Ah, well.

We've been here a few days, and only got a glimpse of the mountains of Ambuklao twice, very briefly when the fog cleared for a few minutes. Power went out for an hour or so earlier. It's back now, cable's out so I put the Godfather II on the DVD player for the nth time and let that serve as ambient sound while I try to get some work done.

We commemorate our 20th year together tomorrow, Rl and I. What a ride it has been! What's in store in the coming years? Would a house of our own finally be in the horizon? Who knows. In the meantime, we just want to clear enough space in front of the fireplace as it seems like the rain will go on for a few more days.

Lights fade out, lights fade in

New home. New beginnings. New rituals and traditions.

New stories.

Bangsamoro Band-Aid Law (Or offering an ARMM, then a leg...)

Atty. Sittie Amirah Pendatu of the legal team of Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) couldn't stress it enough - nowhere in the proposed Bangsamoro Basic law do the words "Islamic State" appear. Yet her presentation of the government's latest peace ransom belie her claim.

Just a few points of interest that caught my attention during the forum last May 29, 2015:

- "Consistent with the Principle of Autonomy and the asymmetric relation of the Central Government and the Bangsamoro Government, the President shall exercise general supervision over the Bangsamoro Government to ensure that laws are faithfully executed." So the person elected by the people of the Republic of the Philippines, from Luzon to Mindanao, shall only have "general supervision" over the Bangsamoro region.


- The national government gets zero percent share from revenues derived from mining operations involving non-metallic resources.

- The redundancy of this provision, "In addition to the basic rights already enjoyed by the citizens residing in the Bangsamoro, the Bangsamoro Government shall guarantee the following enforceable rights..." followed by a list of rights already provided for and protected by the Constitution. Double redundancy: the provision ends with "The Bangsamoro Parliament may pass a law for the promotion and protection of the above-enumerated rights."


More questionable provisions have been tackled in this article: UP LAW EXPERT: The Lies of the Bangsamoro Basic Law


The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was a result of peace negotiations/efforts between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). That didn't sit well with some factions within the rebel group who believe that the Bangsamoro region should be an independent Islamic State, the ARMM was rejected, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was born, and the armed conflict in Mindanao continued.


The Bangsamoro Basic Law is now on the table, and the MILF likes what it sees. I asked Atty. Pendatu, "5, 7 or ten years from now, who will we have not consulted, the Abu Sayyaf? The Rajah Sulaiman Movement? Jemaah Islamiyah? And what are we going to offer then? How about the New People's Army? What did they want again?
Section 5 of our Constitution declares: "No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed." To me, the Bangsamoro Basic Law contradicts the first part of this section, and whatever its proponents' aspirations are are protected by the latter half.



Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as follows: "the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal."


With Mamasapano on my mind, it's difficult not to see what the BBL for what it is: a political goal achieved by engaging in violence and other acts of terrorism.


We acknowledge the struggle of the people of Mindanao, whether Muslims, Lumads, Christians, etc., as we acknowledge too the injustices experienced and being experienced by other groups, communities, by families and every Filipino, and as in most conflicts, violence never achieves true justice. A Band-Aid in one part of the body will not heal a wound that's very deep and affects the whole nation.
Take it from Rizal: "Why independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"

Baguio in the time of Domogan

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ In Baguio today, it's more like - those who choose to ignore history cannot learn from it.

Here's a portrait of today's Baguio: a tiny highland city a kilometer and a half or so above sea level with an estimated resident population of half a million with hardly enough resources to sustain such a huge population, its carrying capacity further burdened by tourists whose numbers can go as high as a million on occasion, water has been rationed since time immemorial where most households receive water only for a couple of hours once a week, a city facing a waste management crisis and its administrators are hardly doing anything substantial to address the problem, pollution levels are at an all time-high and continue to rise, crime is also on the rise and, perhaps with the exception of the few years under Japanese occupation, the quality of life of its residents are at an all-time low.


Fairly recent developments - City Hall approved and defended a mall's planned expansion which had almost two hundred trees, most of which are decades-old pine that served as one of the few remaining forest covers in the city's central business district, the Rose Garden at Burnham Park was "developed" which significantly reduced its natural space and replaced with concrete and a dancing fountain, the city's congressman caused the death of hundreds of pine trees in a forest reserve and the contamination of the areas water resources compromising the welfare of thousands of residents, and its aesthetically-challenged, shortsighted, unsentimental Mayor who has occupied various seats in the local government of Baguio for more than two decades is determined to trample on the historical value of two heritage sites: the Baguio City Hall (where they want to build a fence around it and concrete structures right in the tree-covered gardens that beautifully frame the government building) and the Melvin Jones Football Grounds (that the Mayor think nothing about digging up to erect a parking facility - his solution to the city's worsening traffic situation).


It is interesting to note that the current mayor, Mauricio Domogan, seem to be obsessed with parking facilities having figured prominently in the Jadewell on-street parking fiasco that caused his erstwhile political sidekick, Bernardo Vergara, the mayoralty but he was lucky enough to survive the backlash and still bagged the city's lone congressional seat in the 2004 elections).


Both the Baguio City Hall and Burnham Park where the football grounds eyed as the site for this parking facility is located are declared heritage sites - as such, any improvements, alterations, construction activity must go through and be approved by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP). Why?


I was fortunate enough to have been able to visit Paris, France as a young man, and I will never forget the experience. Perhaps it worked to my advantage that this was way before the advent of digital cameras, so I took in all of that Parisian visuals with my eyes and not through an lcd screen and saved all of it in my mind and not in some memory card, the reason why I can still vividly recall not only the images but the whole experience itself.


Paris has a soul, it is alive and the city speaks to you, it tells you her story with every cafe, building, park, boulevard and side street. All infrastructures in the city complemented the city's heritage, its feel, its soul. Two major structures built a century apart do jump out of the renaissance painting that is the Parisian skyline: the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.


Mayor Domogan is not proposing to build an Eiffel Tower and a Louvre. Not at all.


At the City Hall grounds, he wants a fence that will serve as "protection" from vandals and is not meant to deny the public access to the grounds. A stage is also part of the this improvement design "to be used by performers..." Local advocacy groups have denounced the project. Mayor Domogan defended it saying that the construction project is not meant to deface a historical site and that this will, in fact, enhance its historical value.


Why am I not buying that? I just have to look at the "improvements" done at the Rose Graden in Burnham Park where parcels were cemented over reducing the area's natural space significantly and and how the place ended up with a "dancing fountain" but much less roses. I have just to look up at the mostly empty flyover at the Baguio General Hospital rotunda and the traffic jams right below it. I have not gotten over the hideous concrete pine tree at the top of Session Road (the construction of which was lauded by Domogan and its eventual removal by another mayor he denounced so vigorously). The man just can't be trusted with a backhoe and a cement mixer. Who knows what he's got up his sleeves this time.


Let's not forget his proposal to put up gates on top of the fences around the whole of Burnham Park.
At the Melvin Jones grounds, the proposal is multi-level underground parking facility, with shops and other commercial establishments on ground level, and a rooftop with artificial turf so "football may continue to be played." I first heard it from on of the horses' mouth, so to speak, soon after the 2010 elections when then congressman-elect Bernardo Vergara announced during the opening of a football tournament their (his and Domogan's) plan to construct an underground parking facility in the area.


Mayor Domogan refuses to acknowledge, and this sentiment is shared by much of the councilors who have either come out to support the ridiculous proposal or have said nothing at all about it, the area's historical value. He also doesn't see the aesthetic value of a wide open space surround by towering trees. He also ignores such an area's ecological value and what could happen if such a huge rainfall catch-basin, aquifer, carbon sink is cemented over. He just has to have his parking lot.


In the meantime, City Hall prohibits activities such as football and other similar sports to be played there as these result in the destruction of the lawn. No football in the football grounds, but yes to destroying it totally and building a parking building?

Baguio was much like Paris in a way before - it had a distinct character. Vestiges of both its colonial past and indigenous heritage against backdrop of pine forests. The city even had a distinct aroma. The cool climate is fast becoming Baguio's only tourism draw and that's why we need to come up with events such as Panagbenga to prop up the industry. Soon, as more cars ply the streets or get caught in traffic jams spewing carbon in the air, that cool climate might just go too for as early as now, we have been experiencing temperatures north of the thermometer that most Baguio folks never experienced before.


Paris has managed to keep its character while our current administrators seem to be doing all they can to destroy Baguio's. Session Road used to be a showcase of Baguio's colonial past - but not anymore, viewing the historic road from any angle today only offers a noisy collage of over-sized commercial billboards. They ignore the very laws that they are supposed to enforce to satisfy their conscience-less capitalist cohorts. Much noise was created about that new building on Session Road that violated the permit issued to its owners who built additional floors on top that exceeded that number of floors that those same owners originally applied for. After much noise? Nothing, it's business as usual.


There's very little left of what Baguio is all about, and Mayor Domogan is determined to erase all that. He's no urban planner, he's no engineer, he's no architect, he obviously doesn't have an artistic sensibility, or any eye for aesthetics, yet his administration has all been about infrastructure. Ugly infrastructure. He's a lawyer, but that doesn't even come into play when it comes to legally defending the city from abuses such as SM City Baguio's insistence on making the biggest commercial establishment in the city even bigger at the expense of the welfare of the people.


The city's heritage cannot and must not be ignored, and I'm not only talking about old buildings and parks here. I'm talking about all the past administrators of Baguio who made sure that the city progressed without sacrificing the city's heritage, its raison d'etre and most importantly the welfare of its citizens. That is a very important aspect of the city's history, and Domogan must ignore that, must learn from that.

We inherited a beautiful city from those who came before us, we cannot, must not allow Domogan to hand over a decaying city to our children on behalf of our generation. Because that's what it all boils down to - we are turning over a dying, soul-less Baguio to our children.