The scent of Pine

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

What is missing in Baguio is the smell of Pine. I hear this everytime from homecoming Baguio folks, and from both local and foreign tourists who have stayed in the city decades ago.

The common sentiment for them and for those who know the familiar smell is for Baguio to get back the scent. That, especially when basura, sewer and reeking canals at Lower Session Road down to Center Mall are what residents and visitors inhale today.

For being under the same chief executive for 18 years, this adorable city has not seen enhancement of its green environment. Instead, its trees were allowed to be cut nonstop – giving way to subdivision developers and the construction of high-rise buildings.

True indeed, this city cannot maintain the scent of Pine because it has a chief executive who once admitted that he cannot do anything when asked to stop the cutting of trees on Luneta Hill “because the land is private property”.

Last Monday, some 193 countries including the Philippines celebrated “Earth Day”, an event that is observed annually on April 22. It is a day that promotes environmental awareness and calls for the protection of our planet.

Incidentally we are in an election season, and so I noticed that in the leaflets of the political bets, only Baguio mayoral candidate Atty. Jose M. Molintas wrote the most doable environment promise.

That is, create an environment bureau to establish barangay nurseries and plant at least a million trees all around the city. The target to plant a million trees is very, very doable. No mayoral candidate said that other than Atty. Jose M. Molintas.

Meanwhile, we express our sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the supporters and campaign workers of the Onjon ti Baguio team of mayoral bet Atty. Jose M. Molintas.

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In Benguet, campaigning for a sustainable green environment was never out of the agenda of incumbent Governor and re-electionist Crescencio C. Pacalso, while his political contenders made promises of financial returns to businessmen-supporters.

Under his watch, he seeks to operationalize further the Provincial Environment Code which he has started doing so when he sat as chief executive in 2016. So far, the province has approved the monthly honorarium for community forest rangers and has started the accreditation of pollution control officers that is on-going.

For one, that is good governance, compared to the past when a former capitol CEO had nothing good on top of his head but to think of overpricing the purchase of road equipment and raiding the treasury to purchase silyasi, parachute tents, senior citizens’ vests and tsinelas that he distributed during the past election campaign.

Talking of good governance or you may call it clean governance, at least the present Benguet Capitol occupant thought of providing a unified direction for the province through the formulation of a provincial strategic map. This has not been initiated by any past administration.

To begin with, the present administration improved public transparency and accountability by establishing an operational internal audit office; and re-establishing the projects monitoring office – two vital organizations in good governance that the past provincial executive deliberately eliminated for his own hidden reasons.

Also, contrary to what one Benguet gubernatorial bet has been distributing in his campaign sorties through some punong barangays who are supportive of his creepy attempt to discredit his political opponents, the inventory and assessment of the provincial government’s estate, properties and landholdings has been on-going since last year.

With that, it was learned that it is only this time again that such an activity was launched or perhaps that was never done in the past.

By the way, I was told that an ABC president in the north of Benguet, along with some punong barangays are openly participating in political campaigns, an act punishable under the election code.

Comelec officials in the municipalities should do their part and issue warnings against the punong barangays and punish those who continue to violate the rules.

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Speaking of the devil, senatorial hopeful Atty. Glenn Chong who, along with AA Kasosyo partylist nominee Mocha Uson sneaked in the Cordillera region last week, said the Comelec is still facing 33 cases.

Included in the list of pending cases is that one where the justice department found probable cause to charge Comelec and Smartmatic personnel for violating Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

The DOJ ordered the filing of criminal charges against the Comelec and vote-counting machine supplier Smartmatic for changing the script in the servers in the middle of transmissions of results during the 2016 polls.

Senatorial bet Glenn Chong insists that the electorate must get rid of Smartmatic because no one should be tampering with the election system while voting and counting is still under the process. That is one vote from me.

Meanwhile, a senatorial bet being peddled as a fighter for indigenous peoples was a no show during a Cordillera Day activity. When one chooses to go to an event other than where he is expected, it means that he skipped the other because it is less important. No vote from me.

That is the reality for IPs, they are always second priority, even to their perceived heroes.