Who will listen?

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

Davic March Fianza

This time, I borrow an environment song written by Cat Stevens in the late 70s that would appear to be uncommon to some. I immediately liked his poetry and music the first time I heard them played late nights on DzEQ and DwHB on a hi-fi transistor radio that I kept hidden under the mattress. The song fits the present time when people are irritable because government and elected leaders have become insensitive to public opinion.

Cat Steven’s “Where do the children play?” goes: “Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes/ Or taking a ride on a cosmic train/ Switch on summer from a slot machine/ Get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything./ I know we've come a long way/ We're changing day to day/ But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass/ For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas/ And you make them long, and you make them tough/ But they just go on and on, and it seems you can't get off./ Oh, I know we've come a long way/ We're changing day to day/ But tell me, where do the children play?

When you crack the sky, scrapers fill the air/ Will you keep on building higher 'til there's no more room up there?/ Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?/ Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?/ I know we've come a long way/ We're changing day to day/ But tell me, where do the children play?”

In April, the natural vegetation of a popular mountain was mindlessly scalped. No need to mention names. Although the reckless act has been denied, we know who was behind it. I do not know if our prosecutors and judges share the same knowledge, let us ask them.

Then the time will come when the management lease contract for the “desecrated” Baguio Skating Rink will expire. Once it expires, all of us who liked it the way it used to be in the 80s, before treasure hunting public officials destroyed it, should be ready to have it stopped from being leased again. Anyway, not many benefitted from it, not the general public. 

Then came the idea to have the Melvin Jones open space excavated and that underneath, a parking space wide enough to accommodate thousands of motor vehicles would be built. Selfish planners say with conviction that the massive double or triple decker parking lots under the surface will surely ease traffic in the central business district. 

They also are assured that this will benefit both the public and the businessmen, considering that the parking site will just be an easy walking distance to the market, department stores and malls. My stupid mind but with or without that Melvin Jones parking area, we all have to go to the market, department stores and malls. Cows, goats and horses will always look for the green. 

Maybe I’m wrong. But when will we stop building parking spaces? When SM Baguio said it constructed parking lots inside the building to ease traffic and rid motorists from on-street parking, we saw that the allotted three-floor parking was not even enough for their own customers. Today, on any road in the city, especially in the CBD, we still find cars parked on street sides.

Now, we will allow thick-faced city planners to destroy the Melvin Jones green football grounds and construct underneath a multi-floor parking center. Will it ease CBD traffic because thousands of cars are now parked under the football grounds? NO! Truth is, the parking lots will invite more motorists to park until it is full just like the SM situation. So that any motorist’s next move is go and look for a parking space somewhere. 

Will the Melvin Jones parking mall be the solution to traffic because no cars are parked on street sides? NO! When there are no motor vehicles parked on the sides, the roads become wide but in a small CBD, all the cars are moving bumper to bumper, and that creates a snarled traffic. Still the best solution is to leave your car at home and ride a cab or jeep if you plan to go to the market – or park somewhere outside the CBD then walk. Good for the legs and lungs.

The wild suspicion of my contractor-friend from Luisa’s Café is that planners proposed Melvin Jones as an alternative parking area because Yamashita treasure hunters disguised as public officials have resurrected. Maybe my friend’s interesting suspicion is right after all. And while it may or may not be true, the Melvin Jones grandstand and football grounds have been the targets of mysterious diggings in the past. 

In the late 80s, they constructed an open culvert canal that ran from the Solibao restaurant to Ganza. It was supposed to answer the problem of flooding. It did not. Then the Melvin Jones grandstand was covered around with a high Sawali wall so that passers-by will not see what the workers are doing. They said, the grandstand was being renovated but when the Sawali walls were brought down, the stage looked the same, except that it was mined underneath and two rooms were newly constructed. Later again, they excavated the western edge of the field and built another stage with comfort rooms that are closed to the public most of the time.

My mischievous friend further commented, maybe the treasure hunters who were acting as public officials did not find what they were looking for in those times when they were digging, so that they now want the whole Melvin Jones area to be excavated in the guise of building multi-floor parking lots. I told him, they can dig Yamashita’s gold anywhere they want to, as long as they leave the green open spaces alone. Enough is enough. But who will listen?