BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon
Baguio officials in California

John Dyte, the press information officer of the Cordilleran group, the BIBAK in Northern California sent us an e-mail on the recent visit there of Baguio officials. Here goes:

Congressman Mauricio Domogan, Philippine Consul General Marciano A. Paynor, Jr., and Baguio City councilors Betty Lourdes Tabanda, Nicasio Aliping, Erdolfo Balajadia as well as Ramon Dacawi as part of their itinerary of visiting Vallejo, a sister city of Benguet, paid a visit to BIBAK Northern California at the residence of Joel and Emily Aliping in El Sobrante, California. They were accompanied by their local sponsors, the Baguio Californians.

It was a beautiful 75 degrees Fahrenheit sunny day. The street to Joel's house was packed and people had to walk uphill to get to the house while Joel directed parking. Pinikpikan, as always, was served along with lechon and other good stuff.

The young ladies served salted salmon hors d'oeuvres and other goodies. Dorothy and gang brought grapes from their neighbors’ backyards. Lots of good food I cannot all mention. I saw huge oysters over the grill.

Our singers were there, reliable as ever, making the crowd scream. Line dancing was being taught and of course the gongs and solibao filled the air. We had a question and answer event with the dignitaries and the questions and information shared.

Paynor invited everyone to come to Baguio next year on Sept, 1, 2009 for the centennial anniversary of Baguio. He is offering the services of his office in coordinating large scale vacation trips back home during that celebration. Consul Paynor is a graduate of City High. Domogan shared that they are working on implementing visa processing facilities in Baguio to serve the Cordillera region.

Someone, of course, asked about the garbage problem in Baguio. The cause as most people probably know is that the landfill in Irisan caused damage during a storm and could no longer be used. If I heard correctly, they are still scouting various areas and even sent the garbage to Capas, Tarlac. There are numerous restrictions to implementing a garbage solution and I gathered that they were still working. There was no definitive answer on an intermediate solution.

Another raised the question of water and while the discussion was long on this one, bottomline that I heard from Domogan was that even if Benguet could supply the water, the cost would be in the neighborhood of P42 per certain unit while currently the cost is P35 within Baguio. For Benguet to supply the water, the cost would have to be in the neighborhood of P65 which is still better than private water deliveries of greater than P120.

Another question was asked about a project by senior Baguio residents and expatriates to put an obelisk somewhere which contained the names of early Baguio residents/pioneers. Domogan mentioned that despite the money he tried to allocate there were several roadblocks to its location. Bottomline, it is not going to happen, but Tabanda mentioned that it was in the program of the committee handling the 2009 centennial celebration but could not offer any more than that.

Tabanda mentioned that they were allocating some land for a flower bed in the area around Imelda Park for sister cities of Baguio. The sister city or local organizations near the sister city should coordinate on funding the design and building of the flower bed. Domogan was asked about running for mayor of Baguio again but said he will cross that bridge when he gets to it but was not really looking for that. Domogan mentioned that the Philippine budget was around 1.4 trillion pesos if I remembered correctly and tried to check that online and it was already in Forbes.

Harry Basingat, the Bibaknets moderator was there having a grand old time displaying his Moses locks. Four of the 11 Alipings were actually in one place and it was great to finally meet Bob and Nick as well as see Joel again. While I am on it, BIBAK NorCal had a concert on Oct. 11 at the Episcopal Church in San Mateo from 5 p.m. to 7.pm. It was $25 a ticket and the proceeds will benefit a specific cancer patient in Baguio. Fina Pengosro was in charge of the tickets. Thank you to all who put together the event. Dinah Villanueva, if this reaches you, thanks for bringing your guests to be our guests as well.