LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza
Sacrificing clean air and Baguio folk for tourism

All was fine until the city council passed Ordinance No. 107-2008 authored by councilor Perlita Rondez and co-authored by many others. The newest ordinance exempts “private motor vehicles and chartered public utility vehicles of visitors, tourists, vacationers, or participants of sanctioned activities such as conventions, conferences and assemblies” from Baguio City Ordinance No. 01-2003 or the number coding scheme.

Barely a month after its approval, the new law has already stirred motorists, law enforcers and other sectors in the city who felt they have been cast aside because the controversial Ordinance No. 107-2008 appears to benefit outsiders more than them. Why?

To offer one’s bed to a visitor and sleep on the floor, or provide the best seat in the room to a visitor is known as Filipino hospitality. But to give consent to visitors who contribute to the deterioration of the quality of air, exempt them from an ordinance that a Baguio resident can not even be excused from, and freely allow them to magnify the traffic problem are not careless acts. Probably, they may turn out to be carefully designed accomplishments with motivations that we have yet to know.

Two weeks ago, mayor Bautista issued Executive Order No. 01 to clarify matters. However, the clarification seemed to have made things more complicated. The mayor defined “private vehicles” as those used by visitors, tourists, vacationers, or participants of said sanctioned activities. Included in the exemption are “chartered public utility vehicles” used by Baguio visitors.

There is no problem with the new definition of “private vehicles” that can not be found in any dictionary even if it does not include private vehicles owned by city residents. I drive an old Voloxwagen and I agree with the rest that with an uninterrupted implementation of the number coding scheme, we do our share in helping reduce the number of vehicles on the road and help improve the quality of air in the city.

What stuns us is that Manila or any other district can not suspend its number coding law in favor of Baguio residents. The new ordinance challenges the saying “While in Rome , do as the Romans do” which I thought all along depicted a world where equality and fairness reigned. But then even that is no longer true.

What is true is that when you violate the number coding law in Manila , you suffer the consequences. What is also true today is that Baguio folks are being cheated by those who are supposed to stand up for them. Instead, they are cast outside of the exemption ordinance, while their visitors can just drive around the city comfortably and “stress-free” which was the word used by one councilor.

I wish to find out too if the terms “visitors and tourists” mean only those who come from Manila or farther South. What about those who come from the remotest barrios in the Cordillera or the nearest barangay in Tuba – do they qualify as ‘visitors or tourists’ under the definition of the mayor?

EO 01 ‘clarified’ that “sanctioned activities” means “sponsored, co-sponsored, or hosted activities by the city, duly authorized or approved by the mayor’s office or the city council through a resolution.”

If that is the law and in order to implement it properly, then practically all events that involve visitors and tourists will have to be ‘sanctioned’ or approved in a city council resolution.

The EO further said that convention or conference participants “are required to present to the apprehending traffic enforcers the proper identification issued by their respective convention organizers to ascertain their involvement to the events.”

What about visitors and participants to an important event that is private in nature such as big company seminars or conventions, including big weddings, silver, golden, diamond celebrations and other anniversaries? Certainly these events will have visitors and tourists who want to be exempted from the number coding law.

Then of course, these will all have to be ‘authorized or approved or sanctioned’ by the mayor’s office so that the visitors and tourists from outside Baguio who will attend these events will be exempted from the number coding law… Okay, mayat dayta!

So next time, when two lovers celebrate their wedding anniversary and will receive visitors from outside of Baguio, they will have to make sure that the event will be ‘sanctioned or sponsored or approved’ in a city council resolution so that their visitors can at least tour the city in their private cars without having to worry about getting arrested.

Of course no big wedding, big birthday or baptism rite will be approved by the city for the sake of the visitors or tourists who will be attending the event. It would be foolish to do so. Nothing of that sort should ever happen even if that is how people interpret the clarifications in EO 01.

Aside from becoming indifferent to some extent to the number coding system that was passed to alleviate worsening traffic conditions, the new law also threatens Ord. No. 61-2008 that was passed for better air quality in the city.

In the study conducted by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a global association of over 400 local government units, the annual fuel savings due to non-use of fuel by public and private vehicles for 35 number coding days in a year is equivalent to a reduction of 17,802 tonnes of eCO2. The ICLEI attributed such results to the implementation of the number coding ordinance.

And even while the number coding scheme was approved in 2003, the agency’s report showed that tourist count still increased by 41% from 2000 to the time of implementation in 2003 – that is from 986,230 visitors in 2000 to 1,411,964 in 2003.

What is the logic behind offering something better to tourists and visitors that can not be offered to people who are voters in this city? I see no good reason in allowing private cars and chartered vehicles to ply our streets and pollute the air that the city is trying to clean, just for the sake that tourists and visitors will enjoy our city.

I hope Baguio folks will be treated the same way when they drive in streets of other districts that are also covered by number coding ordinances. I hope that when any of our councilors will be caught for violating the number coding ordinance of a city somewhere, he or she will just be allowed to go free after talking to the arresting officer about attending a convention or seminar. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com