Bibak California delivers $5,000 dollars / Blue lanes

BENCHWARMER

Ramon S. Dacawi

Cordillerans who have resettled in Northern California reached out to their homeland last Tuesday by dispatching their chief to a remote, pine-clad barangay in Sabangan, Mt. Province to jumpstart the building of the upland community’s waiting shed-cum-barangay hall.

Art Bulayo, the president of BIBAK-Northern California, motored from Baguio to the end of the road in barangay Data where residents want to construct a waiting shed to protect them from the elements while waiting for a ride to transport their farm produce to the outside world.  

Village chief Gabriel Lantec led his village in receiving P200,000 ($5,000) raised by members of the organization of Cordillera expatriates in  the San Francisco Bay area of the most populous state of the United States.

California  also has the largest number of Filipino  immigrants in the U.S. (787,422, or 46.7 percent of the Filipino-born population in 2008).

(BIBAK stands for Benguet-Ifugao-Bontoc-Apayao-Kalinga, referring  to the original sub-provinces of the Cordillera. Other BIBAK chapters  also operate in other countries, with the acronyms of some amended to jibe with the present composition of the Cordillera Region,  like BIMAAK in the East Coast of the United States which stands for Benguet-Ifugao-Mt. Province-Apayao-Abra-Kalinga.)

Lantec, in a letter of gratitude earlier sent to Bulayo, said the project would be completed this December, before the barangay fiesta.

“Our deepest gratitude to all of you members of the BIBAK Northern California, U.S.A. for choosing our barangay as the recipient of your yearly financial assistance for community development through Mr. DoroteoTade,” Lantec wrote. “We gently appreciate it.”

The project site on a bluff offers a panoramic view of Data’s rice terraces and the neighboring villages of Nacagang, also in Sabangan, and Suyo, Ankiling, Bugang and Ambasing in Sagada town.

That’s why the top of the building was designed for a view deck, Lantec explained.

With Bulayo to document the turn-over was journalist Harley Palangchao, president of the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club who visited Northern California in September last year as a member of a goodwill mission to Vallejo, Baguio’s sister-city in the Bay Area.

For years now, members of the BIBAK have been teaming up with the Baguio Californians in hosting visiting officials and residents of Baguio and the Cordillera through dinners or traditional canaos,  guided tours and amenities.

Even a personal visit by a Baguio resident is enough reason for an instant hosting by Baguio and Cordillera expats, Palangchao noted.

Once in a while, expat musicians the likes of Joel Aliping and Conrad Marzan would mount folk concerts at the parish of Fr. Leonard Oakes in Daly City to raise funds for seriously ill patients back home. Now and then  BIBAK officers would also pass the hat for the same purpose.

This early, Bulayo has ordered 700 tickets printed for BIBAK Northern California’s annual grand canao set in September next year and has started sounding off the 400 or so members for the celebration.

Aside from serving as a fund-raiser for outreach projects back home, the canao has become a powerful rallying point to nurture the expats’ sense of identity and linkage to the Cordillera.

Serving with Bulayo in the BIBAK board are Joel Aliping – vice-president; Fina  Pengosro – secretary; Simona Cecil – asst. secretary; Theodora Pengosro – treasurer; Judith Dulay – asst. treasurer; Sobrena Somebang – auditor;  John Dyte, Dorothy Pucay and Mark Watan – press relations officers.

Composing the board  are Salve Agiao, PilarManno-Marzan, Tony Buangan, Edgar Cadwising, Felix Dontogan, Johnny Khangab, Miguel Labon, Johnny Mazna-a, Rev. Leonard Oakes, Madeline Pengosro and DoroteoTade while Victor Pengosro chairs the burial aid program. – Ramon Dacawi.

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Elderly pedestrians and the disabled who, until recently, risked being booked for jaywalking or, worse, being sideswiped by motorists for crossing that opening below the overpass near the Malcolm Square, will no longer be apprehended and, hopefully, can cross to safety safely.

While the Department of Public Works and Highways is into to erasing some of the city’s old sidewalks to give space to motorists, the city engineer’s office has restored the said “blue lane” for senior citizens and people with disabilities who can not climb up the overpass in going to the market or to the square.

The reopening of the pedestrian access along Magsaysay Avenue serves as a modest counterpoint to the reduction of pedestrian lanes, topped by the recent obliteration of a portion of the sidewalk along Leonard Wood Road in a DPWH concreting project to widen the space for cars to pass through along the national highway leading to Pacdal and Mines View Park.

Revival of the walkway was prompted by a resolution the city council adopted last October calling on the city engineer’s office to address the clamor of senior citizens and differently-abled persons for dignity in and equal access to the urban space.

Elderly residents serving as city officials for a day under the yearly observance of Elderly Filipino Week in October  had passed several resolutions urging the restoration of the “blue lanes” in accordance with national and city laws.

The right to access of the elderly and PWDs to spaces and street crossings within the city is provided under Ordinance 108-2008 and Ordinance 32-2009 of the city council.

The second ordinance authored by vice-mayor Daniel Farinas directs the installation of additional blue lanes or pedestrian crossings for the elderly and differently abled at Abanao St., Session Road, Harrison Road, City Hall area, Magsaysay Avenue to the city public market and other areas near commercial establishments.

Contrary to the spirit of the ordinance, some blue lanes were closed by concrete walls or fences dividing the vehicle lanes along the city’s main streets.

In silent defiance, senior citizens going to and from the market, risked being bumped by cars by crossing Magsaysay Avenue through a small portion of the road not blocked by concrete dividers, except a movable iron bar.

Last week, the city engineer’s office set up a sign declaring it as a pedestrian access for the elderly and the disabled. The “blue lane” mark on the street surface to indicate the same as such, however, needs repainting.

The push for dignity in and equal access to the urban space, specially for pedestrians and bicyclists  is championed by urban planner, Dr. Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia and now a fellow of New York University.

“A city is made for people, not for cars,” Dr. Penalosa said in a keynote at the 2005 international conference on urban planning in Sweden. “ Throughout history,” he added, “there were more people killed by cars than by wild animals in the forest.”

Urban planning, he said, should take into account the right of the pedestrian for access to and mobility within the urban landscape.