Theme and reality (Patch of pine 5)

BENCHWARMER
Ramon Dacawi

(This is an exercise in redundancy. I’ve treated on the topic four times before, zeroing in on the appeal to have that tiny patch of pine within the heart of Baguio’s urbanizing landscape spared from the continuous sprawl of concrete.)

The theme for Baguio’s 100 years on Tuesday captures that daily downtown scene during its formative years. That was when our elders took longer to walk up and down Session Rd., our short, inclined main street. Not because of traffic, but because residents then took time to greet each other and strike up a conversation before moving on.

We were one neighborhood then, not 129 barangays. Almost everybody knew everybody, if not by name then by face and which side of town the other comes from. Residents then would stop to share the news before the venerable Baguio Midland Courier, the only weekly then, summed up the week on Sunday morning.

The theme encapsulates today’s common yearning to foster – for tomorrow’s generations – the culture of caring, the sense of community and fair play that was (or is) the mark of a Baguio boy and girl, one truly blessed to have grown up in this mountainous region of pines so devoid of the harshness of the extremes of nature and man in the tropics.

Yet the lure of a place triggers its undoing. The present reality on the ground triggers yet douses nostalgia. We now pine for the vanishing scent of pine, relentlessly being obliterated as “that grey, unyielding concrete makes a city of my town”.

The quote is from Pete St. John, the Irish journeyman and song composer who might have well described Baguio now when he wrote “The Rare Old Times” as a lament, if not a dirge, for his native Dublin town.

The reality on the ground – that of a cement road a-forming towards urban decay – has just been spelled out for us by Senator Rodolfo Biazon. He came up to validate and tell us our fears he shares with Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago and whoever saw Baguio then and now.

The feisty lady solon had filed a resolution seeking inquiry on the reported urban decay up here, triggering Biazon’s visit. She spoke not only for us up here, but for a multitude who share fond memories of Baguio after they made their first ascent through the once-scenic Kennon Road.

The Courier reported about Senator Biazon saying “it is not yet conclusive to claim that Baguio is presently suffering from urban decay and environmental degradation, but… there are some indicators that may lead this city towards it”.

The signs towards urban degradation are visible and felt, even without that costly gadget installed at the foot of our main street to accurately measure, sadly in technical language, the rate of urban pollution in terms of “particulates per million (PPM)”.

What shall we do aside from figuring out the daily PPM reading, beyond the daily hand-wringing, nail-and lip-biting? Beyond waxing nostalgic? For one, we can talk to the Government Service Insurance System and Shoemart about saving that patch of pine beside the Baguio Convention Center. It can be their most fitting gift of caring and belonging that gives substance to the centennial theme.

GSIS is a very reasonable, insightful agency that sees where true value lies. That’s why we can lay before it the same argument of reason it used in 2002. That was when it bought, for some P40 to P50 million, “Parisian Life”, a painting by Juan Luna, in an auction in Hongkong. When GSIS members protested, GSIS said it does not only insure government employees and property. It also insures national heritage.

Baguio is also national heritage, and our collective memory of it makes it more so. The small patch of green standing like a lonely sentinel serves as proof that Baguio’s own distinction and unique beauty is still reality. After all GSIS acquired the lot without shelling out a single centavo (through President Marcos’ proclamation), unlike in the case of Luna’s painting. Obviously now, we need the mini-forest as a refreshing juxtaposition to urban sprawl, a priceless, open and public space in the congesting heart of Baguio.

We owe it to convince GSIS, lest visitors and those coming home for the centennial, would take us to task again for mangling what they, too, treasure. More so, we owe it to their and our children. Still, beyond their finger-pointing, they should help us convince GSIS, as the blame on us is quite ironic.

The much bigger pine forests remaining are being turned into enclaves of the rich, by big-time outside developers who, unlike us, can afford to possess them to fulfill the yearning for a piece of Baguio. Our hands are tied, as their permits and environmental compliance certificates are issued in Metro-Manila, despite and perhaps because of our protests.

We beg GSIS and Shoemart to erase their commercial vision of a high-rise condotel and business complex replacing the mini-forest. After all, the concrete project, dubbed “Baguio Air Residences, won’t help improve the air. After all, it would worsen traffic congestion and pollution. After all, we had already bent backwards, adjusting our city’s traffic scheme when that mall opened up on Luneta Hill.

Shoemart wants to be part of and belong to Baguio, not the other way around. It has sensitivity, which is precisely the centennial theme and the mark of the Baguio we all long for. Shoemart is open to suggestions, two of which we mentioned that time its executives apologized to our youth cultural troupe who performed at SM-Clark.. SM-Baguio now has more comfort rooms and a breast-feeding room. It opened to dialogue when city councilor Rocky Balisong fired a privilege speech questioning its acquisition of the mall lot where the Pines Hotel once stood in the good old days.

SM’s and GSIS’ sparing that mini-forest as gift for Baguio’s centennial would give social, community and environmental dimensions to that come-on theme: “We got it all for you.”

If not, what else can we do? The city can exert its power of eminent domain and buy that mini-forest, for it to remain as is, and for public use and purpose. Local folks and people down there in Metro-Manila, together with expatriates who trace their roots to Baguio and the Cordillera, would surely help raise the amount needed for the expropriation.

In the jargon of development and business enterprise, that would be a win-win situation. GSIS and SM would still profit, from the payment that even our children could help raise. The fund campaign itself would be a rallying point for unity, on which to anchor our centennial theme.

Otherwise, we’d just watch, as we’re watching Camp John Hay’s development into a rich man’s enclave, even as we beg for the city’s share from rental payments. Otherwise, let’s spin Pete St. John’s plaintive piece as Baguio’s centennial theme.(e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com/ecowalkmondax@gmail.com for comments).