The Bowl Job Blows

*my article in the August 19, 2012 issue of the Cordillera Today

Déjà vu – a couple of years ago, the issue helped bring down a mayor’s bid to move up the political ladder and become the city’s representative in congress. Peter Rey Bautista, then the city’s chief executive, found himself at the receiving end of biting criticism, this paper among the most rabid, over plans to bring in a private partner to rehabilitate and develop the dilapidated Baguio Athletic Bowl.

A local reporter claimed then that it was already a “done deal,” likened to a midnight deal since it was done during the Christmas holidays a few months before the elections, and that lawyer Reynaldo Cortes thought that “the measly lease of P1.2M (a year) is ‘peanuts’,” even with the 10% annual increase after the first five years.

I initially joined the bandwagon then, but I have to admit that my opposition was somewhat tempered when I read through the proposal then – a private company would come in to rehabilitate the facility, including raising the track oval to international standards and improving the grandstand to accommodate up to 20,000 spectators. To recoup their expenses, they would be allowed to operate an athletes’ dormitory, sports shops and food and beverage establishments. The facility would remain free and open to the city’s athletes and for city government-sponsored events.

The fact that that the proposal guaranteed that local athletes would still get to use the upgraded facilities for free made me rethink my opposition, though I agreed with Atty. Cortes’ assertion that P100,000 a month was quite disadvantageous to the government.

Bautista gave in to the public outcry then, and shelved the idea. But now the proposal is being revived. Councilor Edison Bilog is today’s lead oppositor up there in City Hall. An online word war is in the offing between him and Councilor Richard Cariño, among those siding with the proposal to privatize the Baguio Athletic Bowl.

The Terms of Reference (TOR) has been posted online for everyone to scrutinize and I have and I don’t buy it.

First, it is not clear whether the local government can actually enter into such deals – the Baguio Athletic Bowl is within Burnham Park, and for crying out loud, as we have been doing every time various parts of the park is turned into a tiangge such the Market Encounter during Panagbenga season, it must be beyond the commerce of man. Besides, can the Baguio City Government, without authorization from the national government, really enter into such contracts involving Burnham Park?

Secondly, our leaders must stop viewing anything that benefits the greater majority as merely an added expense that the city must be able to recoup. A park is an invaluable service that the government must spend for, and the ROI the that city gets from it is far more valuable than whatever amount commercializing it brings: a happy, healthy citizenry that’s able to escape life’s challenges without having to cough up precious, hard-earned money for a chance to simply exhale once in a while. We cannot keep on saying that that we don’t have money for something that will benefit the masses while at the same time throwing away more than a hundred million for useless ERS machines that failed to make a significant dent in our search for a solution to the garbage problem.

To me, privatization is a paradox. The government privatizes primarily due to lack of funds. But then private companies enter into these contracts with the government because the venture is profitable. So, even if I believe that ROI should not be an issue in rehabilitating the Baguio Athletic Bowl, if they indeed believe that the development of the Baguio Athletic Bowl is a profitable venture, why doesn’t our local government just do it itself? No money for it? Come on! Again, we can easily spend more than P100M for ERS machines that didn’t serve its purpose. We can spend millions on unnecessary road repairs. We can spend millions on “park improvements” that actually diminish the aesthetic value of the place rather than enhance it. Heck, not too long ago, we spent millions for a stupid concrete pine tree!

Having said all that, I say no to the privatization of the Baguio Athletic Bowl. It just blows.

On a day such as this

There were no guarantees I'd make it there – news reports the previous night showed the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) to be impassable due to flooding in various portions of the highway. When the following morning’s news reports and social media updates showed that the floods along the Manila-Central/Northern Luzon highway link have receded, and because of an unavoidable appointment last Wednesday, I braved the torrential rains and got on a bus to Manila having no idea if I can get to my destination from wherever the bus could take us.

The bus ride went along rather smoothly until we got to NLEX when heavy rains resulted in almost zero-visibility. Luckily we reached the Cubao station without any incident – and there the adventure began. It was half past three in the afternoon, and I was scheduled to meet a client in an hour in Pasay. My best bet to make it on time was to take the MRT, and the nearest station was merely a hundred meters or so away. But the rain was so strong that a few seconds under it would leave you completely drenched, so walking those hundred meters was out of the question. Besides, I couldn’t even get out of the bus station on t the street because the area was flooded.

15 minutes passed, then I decided to just wade in and get on the nearest bus to get to the MRT station. That short bus ride took half an hour. Five minutes later and I was on an elevated railway on a train making its way through the rain to Pasay. Another 15 minutes and we arrived at the Pasay-Rotonda station. I got off and made my way down to take whatever mode of transportation would be available to take me to my destination, which on a normal day would have been merely five minutes away - and I had 25 minutes left.

A crowd of people gathered at the bottom of the steps – there, floodwaters reached up to above the knees. Jeepneys would back all the way up the sidewalk to right infront of the MRT station steps so passengers can hop in without getting wet. Pedicabs offered passage to just a few meters to the other side of the road for P100.00. I hopped on a jeep, arrived at my destination, met with the client and quickly concluded our business transaction and called my daughter who was staying in a dormitory near her school, St. Benilde along Singalong St. near Taft Avenue - an area notorious to get underwater at the slightest downpour.

The rain has stopped, and another jeep ride and several flooded streets later and my daughter and I were merely some steps away from each other at the corner of Vito Cruz and Taft Ave., separated by a sea of murky and debris filled- waist-high floodwater. So near and yet so far. My daughter got on a pedicab and after having dinner together and knowing that she’s safe where she was, I walked her back to the edge of the flood, negotiated with a pedicab driver to take her back to her dormitory. I did notice that while the flooding in some areas slightly receded when the rain stopped, the water level in others remained as they were – clogged drainage systems and canal were clearly the culprit.

The rains fell again as soon as the pedicab disappeared from view. I called my daughter to check if she made it back safely, and she did, so I made my way back to the bus station in Pasay. This time it wasn’t as easy. The rain has started pouring again which made the floodwaters rise again and now there were less jeepneys on the road. After a combination of several short jeep rides and balancing acts on whatever elevation the sidewalks of F.B. Harrison St. offered, I made it to EDSA. I decided to walk the rest of the way to the station.

After making it to the other side of Taft Ave., merely a few meters away from the bus station, I saw blinking lights in the distance approaching. A couple of motorcycle-riding policemen, imposing SUVs with tinted windows, and it became obvious that this was probably the president’s convoy.

One support vehicle veered a little too close to the side of the road, splashing water on me and other pedestrians who didn’t have the luxury of not having to walk the streets on a day such as this.

The whole truth

My article in the August 5, 2012 issue of Cordillera Today

The Save 182 movement stipulated in court that several protest actions prove that the community is against the removal of trees on Luneta Hill to pave the way for SM City Baguio’s expansion project. The highly-paid lawyers of SM, together with the people’s taxes-paid lawyers for DENR and DPWH, denied it, so we endeavored to prove our claim.

I took the witness stand last week to testify on the community’s opposition to the expansion project of SM City Baguio. I brought with me video footage and photos documenting the various rallies and other protest actions against SM City Baguio, but the court and the defense lawyers prevented me from presenting these, citing various technicalities. I can’t help but be reminded of the infamous brown envelope that brought Joseph Ejercito down. 

Our lawyer then tried to have me testify on the heritage of the city including Luneta Hill. But again, the court and the defense lawyers dismissed whatever I could’ve said on the stand as hearsay, being mainly based on research and studies I made in the production of the video documentary on the history of Baguio City, “Portrait of a Hill Station.” That documentary has been endorsed by the Baguio Historical Society.

Essentially, they claimed that I cannot possibly testify on the history of Baguio City since I wasn’t personally there during the time of Baguio’s genesis as a city. So if any of you know of anyone who was present when Luke E. Wright and Dean Worcester surveyed Kafagway in 1900, please let us know.

They asked me to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth then proceeded to prevent the same from being heard in court.

The testimony that I wasn’t able to present in court, I hereby present to you, the people:

That based on various historical documents, Luneta Hill was the site of the very first structure that the Americans erected in preparation for Kafagway’s transformation into the City of Baguio. That after putting up a sanitarium on Luneta Hill, the city’s pioneers made efforts to beautify the area by planting flower gardens and trees some of which, based on their age, are among the trees that SM intends to uproot for their concrete structure. Luneta Hill, and the trees thereon, are very much part of the city’s heritage, and thus must be protected, defended and preserved.

That on January 20, 2012, thousands of residents took to the streets to voice out their opposition to the project. 

A couple of weeks later, on February 5, 2012, a tree planting activity and concert dubbed “Pine for Pine” hand more than a thousand Baguio lovers planting trees at the Pine Trees of the World Park and more than a hundred local and nationally-renowned artists performing in a concert that was held in protest of the expansion project. 

On Valentine’s Day, hundreds lit candles and joined hands and marched around SM City Baguio during “Jericho Walk” chanting “Boycott SM!” 

That several public demonstrations were held thereafter.

And on the night of April 9, 2012, SM started uprooting trees on Luneta Hill, which enraged concerned citizens who marched to Luneta Hill the following morning in protest. During that rally in the morning of April 10, 2012, our lawyers announced to the public that a Temporary Environmental Protection Order has been issued by the court but SM City Baguio refused to accept or acknowledge it. That same evening, they continued removing trees on Luneta Hill. 

That on April 11, 2012, various groups called for an assembly at the Baguio Cathedral grounds to protest SM City Baguio’s brazen defiance of the court order. Once again, numbering several thousands, the group marched to Luneta Hill to reiterate the community’s opposition not only to the expansion project but to SM’s utter disregard for the law. 

I hereby swear that all of the above information is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the best of my knowledge and belief.

So help Baguio, Kabunyan.

*with photos courtesy of Jojo Lamaria

Are you gay?

*my column in the July 22 issue of Cordillera Today (with Vani's permission)

I was asked that same question by my mother when I was about 16 years old. We were having dinner and after eating, she asked me to stay at the table because she had to talk to me about “something important.” She gave me a long preamble about having a lot of gay friends, how fun it was to be around them, etc., and then finally popped the question: are you gay? Having been in theater for a couple of years already by then, she must have noticed that I was beginning to speak the gay lingo that was the de facto official language of the theater world. Easily half of my friends then were gay.

Years later, I asked my son to join me at the porch after dinner – I wanted to talk him about “something important.” A long talk, that’s what we called these serious one-on-one sessions, and his siblings teased him when they heard that I wanted to have one with him, “hala ka, kuya, Papa wants to have a long talk with you! You’re in trouble!” He just laughed it off, but I could feel that he was quite nervous about it. Though I told myself that I wouldn’t do a preamble like my mother did long ago, I found myself rambling on and on about, well, having a lot of gay friends, how fun it was to be around them, etc. But I wasn’t exactly wondering about it, in fact I was quite sure about it. So I didn’t ask a question and instead told him, “I just want you to know that I know that you’re gay, and that you have no reason at all to hide it from me.”

I first had a feeling that he was when he was about nine or 10 years old. He loved Hillary Duff, and that show, “Lizzie McGuire,” and the family had no choice but to watch the show along with him whenever it was on. I liked the show, Lizzie’s father and brother were so funny. My other children would tease him about having a crush on the Disney teen star. For some reason that was not how I saw it.

Then, I always made sure that I gave them a half hour or so before picking them up for school to give them time to play with their friends and classmates. His younger brother and sister would be all over the school playground with their classmates, roughhousing, climbing and jumping off the monkey bars while he would be in one corner with his girl classmates, talking, giggling and laughing a lot. And one afternoon, watching them from afar, I noticed: my son talked, laughed, smiled just like Lizzie McGuire. I found it so cute.

Some friends noticed it too – he was quite effeminate, they would say, and that maybe I should talk to him about it already. I didn’t’ think so. I mean, should I talk to any one of my children at nine or 10 about his or her sexuality if he or she showed signs of being heterosexual?

Then one time, I was called to the principal’s office of his school. The school principal and my son’s adviser had that look of grave concern on their faces, and I was so nervous thinking that my son must have done something seriously wrong. And then the principal said, “we called you in today because Mr. _____ thought it was best to inform you about your son’s condition.” (Emphasis on that last word mine to give you an idea about how they lingered for a moment or two before actually saying the word, as if the actual word was such a terrible thing to utter) I had a feeling about what they meant to say, of course, yet I still asked. What condition? Then the adviser said, “I noticed that your son has been showing signs of being a homosexual, and I talked to him about it.”

"And what did you tell him?" I did all I can to prevent myself from raising my voice. And then he said, “I told him that it’s wrong, but it’s ok, there are things we can do to correct his situation.” At that point, I had to raise my voice already if only to prevent myself from punching the self-righteous smirk off his face, “how dare you!”

The adviser was surprised at my reaction, and proceeded to explain why he had to do something about it, I could hardly understand him as he rambled on about God and the Bible and “corrective measures.” He then asked me what I thought should be done about it. “Do something about what, his being gay? Absolutely nothing!” I replied. “How dare you impose your own twisted sense of morality on my son, and tell him that his nature is wrong!”

I didn’t tell my son about my encounter with the principal and his adviser then, but a couple of years later, that night at the porch, he was already entering his teens and I thought it was time. He blushed, paused for a moment and I was quite surprised when he replied, “But I’m not gay, Papa. I know I act this and that way in front of my friends, but that's just because it's fun.” I felt bad that he denied it, and I thought that perhaps he found it easier to stay inside the closet than tell his father face to face that he was. I thought about all of my gay friends who talked about how hard it was for them to come out to their parents. “But I really believe that you are, son,” I told him. 

Later, he would tell me he was, in fact, being honest at the time - while a lot of people around him thought that he was gay and some even talked to him about it, and that he himself also has thought about it, he really wasn't sure yet if he was at that point.

I told him that, ok, I will go along with his denial, and still talked to him about sexuality and sex in general for at his age, he should be informed about it before his Catholic school or anyone else start telling him that it’s a sin to be gay and that sex is dirty. We talked about sexuality, sex, being responsible. I told him about how our society still has a long way to go in accepting the fact that some of us are attracted to the opposite sex, and some of us aren’t. I told him about how I wish we lived in a more ideal society where people weren’t judged by on their sexuality, nor, for that matter, the color of their skin or the clothes they wear or the kind of car they drive. But that’s just the way it is now. So while the sneers, the teasing and the tasteless jokes about gays were wrong, I told him to be careful out there, and at least try not to invite all that. But if he ever decides to be the guy who dressed up in flamboyant clothes, I would still proudly walk alongside him down Session Road and be the first to defend him from the bigots of the world.

Acceptance? That night, I told my son that I did not need to accept his being gay just as there was no need for me to accept that his siblings aren’t. Having to “accept” him, to me, is practically admitting that there’s something wrong with him. And to me, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his being gay.

Marko Angelo, my eldest son, who likes to be called Vani, a fine, fun, sometimes mean to his siblings but most of the time a very protective brother to them, also a very respectful, responsible and very loving son to his parents, the life of the party to his friends, and one of the five children I am so blessed and proud to have.

Violators will be apprehended, maybe

At the top of Session Road, where the rotunda is, people risk life and limb squeezing between concrete and iron barriers, playing a potentially fatal game of patintero with motorists, brazenly and oh so easily ignoring the huge signs that say, “no jaywalking” and “violators will be apprehended.” And what’s worse is that the scene repeatedly happens right across the office of the city’s traffic management czar. And what makes matters even worse is that even policemen do it.

It’s the same thing at the bottom of the Session Road where the city’s so-called experts on traffic management had this bright idea of closing the pedestrian crossing lane right across Mercury Drug. While I believe that the move was anti-pedestrian, elitist even, a rule is a rule.

At the upper part of Abanao Street, they left open a few meters of the rest of the center island fronting a gasoline station, just a few meters from the newly-constructed pedestrian overpass. This un-barricaded part of the road has now become an open invitation to the lazy to again violate a rule – people of all ages can be seen darting through traffic in this area instead of using the overpass.

What’s all the ado about jaywalking? Because it says a lot about us as a community and Baguio as a city.

For every jaywalker that gets away with it, that’s one person who believes that the law isn’t something to be taken seriously. That’s one person who will find it easier to park his vehicle illegally, beat the red light, not segregate his garbage, smoke in public buildings maybe even right in the heart of Justice Hall in full view of the public like someone I know, cheat on his taxes, not issue a receipt if he owned a business, drive a colorum taxicab, be an illegal vendor or a legal vendor of illegal merchandise, and so on and so forth. Am I exaggerating? Look around you.

Our government flaunts all these laws that in the end aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Take the seatbelt law for example: when it was introduced not so long ago, every motorist in the city obeyed simply because the law was strictly enforced. Well, at least for a while. I was once apprehended for not wearing my seatbelt and I remember thanking the policeman for the reminder. But that law has since been forgotten and today, even most taxi and jeepney drivers don’t even bother to pretend they have a seatbelt on by just placing the lifesaving contraption across their chest without actually locking it in place.

You let them get away with one, you encourage them to try to get away with another.

Late at night, if you stop at a red light even if it’s clear that there are no cars approaching, you suddenly become the stupid one when the car right behind you starts honking his horn egging you to violate the law. At the lane crossing Mabini Street, you’re the dumb one who waits for the pedestrian light to turn green even if there’s no car coming down the street as everyone else starts crossing, at times you even get screamed at by those behind you for being in the way of their being a scofflaw.

What’s the point? If you can’t enforce it, scrap the law! Take out the No Jaywalking signs because yes, our police allow jaywalking. Take out the signs that say Violators Will Be Apprehended because violators don’t get apprehended.

For if our government cannot implement even the simplest of laws such as the one jaywalking, how can we expect it to lift a finger at all to enforce more complicated laws that, say, protect and defend our environment and our right to a healthful climate?

Ciano

The small town has gone to bed for the night – it’s half past midnight and except for the husbands struggling to get on their motorcycles to go home as the town’s lone watering hole was closing its doors, the policemen struggling to stay awake on another quiet, uneventful evening, hardly anything else stirred.


A statue of the Sacred Heart, dramatically lit in the churchyard next to it, watched over the scene. We drove past the elementary school along the national highway where she learned how to read and write, we then turned to a narrow street to the house where Ciano lived all of the 93 years of his life, the same route she used to walk as an elementary pupil some three and a half decades ago.


We stopped in front of the “dakkel nga balay,” though it wasn’t really that much bigger than most of the houses on the street. In fact, the house stood rather inconspicuously surrounded by various trees including one with pretty white flowers that seemed to glow in the dark. While for decades it was indeed the biggest house on this street – two floors, a receiving area, kitchen and dinning room at the first floor then another living room on the second and a couple of bedrooms, Ciano never found the need to add to it, except maybe to replace the nipa with G.I. sheets for the roof, concrete flooring for the first floor instead of the old one made from dried, packed, buffed carabao dung – he didn’t need to, the bachelor lived alone for most of the last three decades.


She stood infront of the gate now made of iron instead of bamboo as she did as a small girl, “Taaaaang! I’m home,” she would call from the street, afraid to enter the gate where Ciano’s geese once roamed freely and defended their territory fiercely by chasing after any intruder. Ciano would get up from planting corn, or feeding the chickens and pigs in the back, and fetch her and protect her from the geese. With her Tatang holding her hand, she felt safe.


Once, on a rainy day, Ciano led her to the edge of the house where the water dripped from the edge of the roof, making tiny holes on the ground below. When the rain stopped, together they planted corn along the neat line created by the dripping. Together they tended, watered when there was no rain, and watched the corn plants grow, until they bore fruit later that year.


I watched her stand infront of that gate, unmoving for a moment, with me foolishly expecting her to call out, “Taaaang, I’m home!” This time she opened that gate herself – there were no more geese in the front yard. After a few moments she came back out and together we unloaded all our bags, got back in the car, and drove a few meters down the road to the hospital.


I met Ciano myself about a decade ago when he visited Baguio. Dressed sharply in slacks and a crisp polo shirt, he kept on joking about how he can still “paint the town red,” and how just recently, while at the market, the tinderas teasingly flirted with him. A small man of just about five feet, with a gentle voice so calm it soothes, Tatang Cien, as she called him, spoke flawless English. She remembers his daily ritual of reading before dinner, aloud, which started her own fascination with the written word.


We’re at the hospital, Ciano is lying in bed with his eyes closed, struggling with each breath. Gently she runs her fingers through his hair, and gently speaks into his ear “Tang, it’s me, I’ve come to see you. I’m right here, Tang… I’m home.” Ciano struggles to reply with a moan.


One by one she introduced her children to him, “this is Leon,” placing her son’s hand on his forehead, “and this is Gabriela and my youngest, Aeneas.” Then finally she whispers, “thank you for taking care of me when I was small.”


While I silently thanked the man who helped create wonderful memories for my wife, and helped define the woman I fell in love with forever.

Watch closely

This early, new political alliances are being brokered, old ones are reinforced, and depending on who the media believes deserves airtime and column inches in the coming months, we will either be ushering in a new breed of real public servants next year… or be stuck with the current powers-that-be that have been around since Baguio was given a fresh start following the July, 1990 earthquake.

In exactly one year from today, we will once again be hoping that we, the people, made the right choices and that our real choices will not be robbed of the opportunity to steer Baguio in the right direction.

Today also marks the beginning of the second act of life in Baguio this year. The year began with SM City Baguio’s announcement of its expansion project that threatens to essentially eradicate Luneta Hill from the face of Baguio, along with 182 trees that form part of our city’s last stand against urban decay. This was immediately followed by the biggest protest rally ever held in the city in recent years, and the biggest slap in the face the community ever received with some of our leaders’ defiant, albeit misguided and untrue, stand that they are powerless to help save what’s left of Baguio after years of rapid mindless urbanization.

That issue has quieted down in recent weeks as the case filed against the expansion proponents enters the trial proper. So while the Temporary Environmental Protection Order issued by the court remains that will keep our hopes for Baguio’s survival as a City of Pines alive until the judge hearing the case hands down his verdict, other issues have come out.

The City Government and Protech, the corporation that sold us the 128 million-peso ERS machines and supposed messiah that will finally put an end to our garbage woes, continue to pass the buck around. In the meantime, garbage continued to pile up uncollected along the city’s streets. Corruption reared its ugly face again in the form of inefficient and at times unnecessary public works projects, and the fact that all these projects are being done a year before elections did not escape the attention of the people.

And today, Act Two of the year begins. What can we look forward to? In a couple of weeks we will mark the 22nd anniversary of the tragic earthquake that brought Baguio to its knees. On August 27, it will be a year since lives and property were lost when a mountain of garbage came rushing down from Irisan down to Asin Road. Baguio will then celebrate its charter day on September 1, its 103rd since George Malcolm envisioned a city “unconstrained by petty politics” in 1909. Before the year ends, the judge hearing the case against SM will rule on how much the 182 trees on Luneta Hill matter.

In the second half of the year, we will be looking forward to a court decision while remembering two tragic events in and observing the birth anniversary of a city. Earthquake, garbage slide, a vision for Baguio and a verdict.

Watch closely. 

 

*my column in the July 1, 2012 issue of Cordillera Today