10 Little Things We Can Do to Help Baguio Be Beautiful Again
During the Baguio PAGASA Workshops, Mahatma Gandhi’s message “Become the Change You Want to See in the World” is explained to us very well. And we learn that all our actions are ripples of energy that can actually cause a tidal wave of change.
The workshop is entitled “Inner Change for Societal Tranformation and folks always ask, “Why should I change? There’s nothing wrong with me!’ To which I say, “You’re right!” But there’s something wrong with Philippine society, isn’t there? Otherwise there will be no poverty, hunger or helplessness. Join us to find out what MORE we could do, just by working on our daily lives to make things better. Let us open your eyes to the power of YOU!
Sometimes, the thought of cleaning and greening Baguio seems overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be if we understand that change starts from each individual. Because we individuals compose Baguio society. And society is responsible for the physical transformation of the city, into what it is now. So it is also we, as individuals, who are empowered to make it beautiful again!
We start with our ourselves, our homes, our offices. Little things, baby steps.
1. Clean up the front lawn and back yard.
2. Fix all door knobs, broken light fixtures, and put your home in perfect working condition.
3. Clean up graffiti left by the street gangs in your neighborhood. Better yet, coordinate with your neighbors about a clean-up drive for your street.
4. Throw out your garbage, properly of course, but also include things you haven’t used for a year. So either have a garage sale or donate your old clothes and stuff to an orphanage or some civic center. When outside your home, bring your trash home and dispose of it properly. Bring a little disposable bag to throw your trash in — keep one in your car or in your bag. Spit or blow your nose into tissue paper and not on the streets..
5. Coordinate with your barangay and BENECO about street lighting in your immediate vicinity.
6. Plant little flowering plants where you can — these come potted and cheap, like Php30/pot of Marigolds, if I’m not mistaken. Plant a tree, plant vegetables — plant, plant, plant!
7. Provide a garage for your vehicles, make sure they actually pass smoke emission levels. Better yet, walk as much as you can to go anywhere. Plan your activites and routes well when you are to take your car out to save on gas, time and to help the environment. Support The Green Ride! Consciously work towards making Baguio a walking city not a motor vehicle city.
8. Do not buy from sidewalk vendors or hawkers in the Central Business District. Resist the urge, consciously. Oooh, I know how hard this is — whenever I would go downtown to the bank, I used to like buying ‘binatog!’ Plan your meals well so that you can purchase a week’s supply. The time and money spent procuring supplies should be added to your costs, if you have to go downtown everyday to purchase ingredients.
9. Patronize businesses that do not use, or encroach upon, our sidewalks, streets, parks and public land for/as their stalls. This means giving your business to those other than on-street car wash services, hollow block, gravel and sand sellers who use sidewalks for these items, those selling Divisoria posters on Session Road, Burnham Park vendors.
10. Read the news, volunteer for a worthy cause, be involved in your child’s school, make your ideas and feelings known. Trust that all your efforts make a great big impact on peoples’ lives, and any small gift of time or money will not at all be wasted, that it will come back to you in many strange and wonderful ways.
Anyone else have any more suggestions?
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If you want to meet energetic, sincere, well-intentioned individuals who have decided that they will change their attitudes towards helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness and actively participate in the creation of a Baguio that is lovely, cordial, safe and beautiful, please seriously consider joining the 3rd Baguio PAGASA Workshop on April 21.
Lisa:
I have only five so far…
1) Don’t throw cigarette butts on the gutter (I know I’m guilty of this, so I’m making a conscious effort to find ashtrays on the sidewalk whenever I can). The same holds true for people who chew betel nuts.
2) Stand up against gang violence, gang-related activity, and everything “gang” in the City of Baguio. If it means forming a citizens’ vigilante group to go after them, by all means do so. They may not claim to be a “nuisance,” but they contribute to the messes of Baguio.
2) Visit parks often. Don’t patronize SM as a place to go to after Sunday Mass. The lifeblood of Burnham Park, Wright Park, and Camp John Hay are residents who go there to have a good time.
3) Segregate your garbage, and coordinate with your barangay officials to build a community “waste chest” where people make the conscious effort to put recyclables and compostables in the right receptacles (hmmm, alliteration).
4) Recycle used plastic bottles and other recyclable items.
5) Love your City, because it’s the only place you can call home.
Hi Marck,
It’s great to be conscious of the little things each one of us can commit to. You won’t believe what a big help this will be to our lovely city, actually. Imagine if all smokers and ‘nganga’ chewers avoided littering? Wow!
As, to the street gangs, if we show them we will not tolerate the graffiti FIRST, that will send a signal that we are aware of them and will deal with more serious offenses next!
Thanks for your suggestions. They’re a very wonderful and positive beginning of the end of the uglification!
I’m away from Baguio right now but hope this applies too:
1. Pick up trash even if it is not your own. If you have children or is a teacher, modelling and teaching this behavior will start the young ones early and will most likely to make it a habit.
2. After cleaning out your front and backyard, try to go farther out. We have an older lady here in our neighborhood who, in her daily walk, carries a trashbag and a “picker-upper” (long “sipit”)and picks up trash along her way. And oh, she looks very lean! Encouraged by her action (see, her “modelling” works) I started cleaning up our small cul-de-sac, including most part of my neighbors’ frontage with my small “walis ting-ting”. One of my caucasian neighbors intrigued by the cleaning efficiency of this strange device, asked me to buy her one from the Filipino store. Oh, how she loves it! Now her husband uses the “walis-tambo” I gifted him. He begged me for one since he saw how well this other device gathers up dirt on my tile.
2. Share seeds, seedlings, or cuttings from your garden. Be willing to give out gardening tips. You will be amazed at what they share back. Share also the small produce from your yard.
3. Smile. Wherever you are, in the jeepney, walking in session road or buying vegetables in the market. Smile when talking to the waiter or waitress serving you. It may seem strange at first but you will get used to it. Do not take it personally if people will not smile at first. You will find out that there are those many who will and will most likely to spread that smile. What would make Baguio more beautiful than the smiles on it’s peoples’ face?
hi lisa and marck, thanks for the tips. trying my damn best to be a good baguio resident.
Cynthia, I absolutely LOVE your suggestion of a smile!
Yup, yup, yup, we should not be stingy with our smiles. Oh how I miss the smiles in people’s faces in Baguio. GoBaguio! mentions the smiles I fell in love with right on the first page.
Hiya Resty,
Of course you are! Just by insisting on walking you are!
And we welcome everyone’s suggestions here. Because it’s a really positive and active way to tackle things, isn’t it?
Plus it encourages everyone to realize the huge impact and importance of little acts of selflessness.
Hello Lisa. Hello everyone.
I just recently discovered Lisa’s GoBaguio site on the Net, and just yesterday, started reading Baguio Insider. GoBaguio gave me almost all the information I was looking for about Baguio (splendid job, Lisa!), but - alas - my spirits fell as I read one blog after another here in Insider.
Lisa, I ADMIRE YOU for what you are doing for Baguio. I, too, have fond memories of spending summer vacation at my Lolo’s place in Baguio in the mid-70’s to early 80’s. I am not a Baguio native, but I can sympathize with people like you who are trying to make Baguio beautiful again.
I came across something on the Net (again, by accident) which I hope will catch your interest as it did mine.
Have you heard of the “SLOW CITY” concept? I could attempt to explain it but I will let the article below explain for me (hope I didn’t violate any copyright laws :-):
*the following transcript is a bit lengthy but well worth the read.
Go slow 30/7/01
MADELEINE HOLT:
100 miles from the chaos of Genoa is the town of Greve in Tuscany. This small community is just as uneasy about growth at any price, but they don’t take to the streets. They take it slow, which takes some getting used to. Greve invented the idea of the slow city. It’s hard not to be chilled deep in Chianti country, but Greve has gone officially slow. Word has spread. 50 Italian cities are now “citta slow”, and the first town in Germany has signed up. The aim is to maximise quality of life without harming the environment. Towns agree to a strict charter, to cherish what makes their community unique. Cars are banned from Greve’s striking square at the weekend. There’s no McDonald’s. Home-produced organic food is encouraged. The town has stopped a hotel chain and big retailer moving here, on the grounds that as many jobs can be created in local enterprise. The “slow city” concept was devised by Greve’s mayor.
PAOLO SATURNINI (TRANSLATION):
MAYOR OF GREVE
This idea came from the hope that mayors, who are quite powerful here in Italy, could do something concrete to change the rhythm of life in our cities and to save them from the homogenisation which is the result of globalisation. This has not been a painless decision, because we have renounced a quantitative development in favour of a qualitative one. So, for example, we have said no to 500 new homes because we think the old ones should be restored.
HOLT:
Decisions are made at weekly meetings of the town council. Today they are discussing how to get mobile phone companies to use just one aerial. There’s more than a whiff of NIMBYism here. A recipe, then, for becoming economically and culturally moribund?
SATURNINI (TRANSLATION):
On the contrary, there is a huge economic vitality, because stressing the quality and preservation of local features has attracted new investment.
HOLT:
Paolo told me young people are coming back to the town. In two years, the number of visitors has doubled and that’s provided a variety of jobs, from crafts to services. And of course, there is Chianti. In Greve, you can buy a Chianti card. It’s in euros, of course. You stick it in here. It tells you how much credit you’ve got, and then you can try as many flavours as you want until the card runs out. Let’s try Chianti Classico to see how much I get. Hmm…let’s try it. Oh, no. I’ll have to try quite a few before I find the one I like. But there is a serious idea behind this, which is that you maximise the commercial potential of whatever is produced locally. What sets slow cities apart from your average conservation-minded tourist town in Britain is not just that they’re more radical environmentally, but there’s a philosophy behind it, “glocalisation”.
PROFESSOR LELLA MAZZOLI (TRANSLATION):
UNIVERSITY OF URBINO
“Glocalisation” puts together two concepts, the global and the local. On the one hand, there is respect for the accepted global system, but, on the other hand, there is respect for the personal and cultural values of the individual.
HOLT:
But suppose other communities want to go “glocal” too? Greve can afford to take it easy. But where does that leave everyone else?
DR STEFANO CASINI (TRANSLATION):
TUSCANY INSTITUTE
Most economists agree that capitalism only functions at high speed. That means that, if someone goes slow, someone else has to go fast. So if people go slowly in Greve, those people are enjoying wealth that is produced elsewhere at a faster rate. This could be said of entrepreneurs who might take it easy living in Greve, but the workers in their company, which is based somewhere else, have to work very fast.
PAOLO SATURNINI (TRANSLATION):
I don’t think so. We are going slowly and it is our choice. Other cities would run anyway, so we can’t really influence the rest of the world.
HOLT:
Or can they? What Greve is trying to do isn’t a million miles from some of the beliefs of the more serious-minded anti-capitalist protesters, in essence putting the environment and the individual before untrammelled growth. So we brought to Tuscany a young Green activist fresh from the barricades of Genoa. We gave Anna Bragga the chance to explore… to sample the pace of life… to taste the organic fruit… and to test Greve’s greenness. Her verdict?
ANNA BRAGGA:
GREEN PARTY
I have been very impressed with the way that local people have been allowed to be involved in the decision-making of the community. They’ve really been able to nurture their own industries, their traditional crafts, and so on, and create a high standard of living. Everyone seems to be able to enjoy a higher quality of life, and a much less stressful way of life than we’re used to in England.
HOLT:
So is this not a better way of achieving some of your goals than taking to the streets?
BRAGGA:
Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I think that, although it is a fantastic way of achieving our aims, at the moment, we need to take to the streets because, in the UK, I don’t think we would get Government support for this kind of initiative.
HOLT:
Which is exactly what one man intends to test. He doesn’t look like a radical campaigner, but Alastair Bisset wants to create a slow city back home in Lossiemouth in the Highlands of Scotland. The town is twinned with the newest recruit to the slow city movement in Germany. We gave him the chance to see the original version. He started at one of the best butchers in Italy, and went on to their family farm.
ALASTAIR BISSET:
How many times do you feed them every day? Once, twice?
UNNAMED FARMER:
In the morning.
BISSET:
I am really amazed at the relaxed attitude which the people have. There is no pace, there is no hurry. Everyone is so relaxed and friendly. I think, in Lossiemouth, there is the same sort of attitude. Lossiemouth is a city or a town, not quite as large as Greve, but they can be compared. Greve has its Chianti, it’s sort of capital of the Chianti country, but in Scotland we have our whisky. Lossiemouth is part of the whisky area of Moray and Speyside, and we are very proud of the distilleries in this area and what they contribute to the economy. Most of the local shops in Lossiemouth are locally owned, the butcher’s, the baker’s, the fish merchant. They are making their own produce and selling it locally.
HOLT:
Lossiemouth also has a fishing port, two beaches, and is the birthplace of Ramsay MacDonald, founder of old Labour. Councillor Bisset accepts that, to pull in more tourists, he’s got a big job on his hands. And that’s not all. There’s one other thing about Lossiemouth. It’s one of the most important RAF bases in Britain, so every day you get some of the noisiest and fastest fighter planes in Europe flying overhead. Very relaxing!
BISSET:
OK, the jet aircraft are very fast. They live in the fast lane. But down on terra firma it gives us the opportunity to lead a slower and more peaceful and tranquil life.
HOLT:
In Greve, they’re waiting for Lossiemouth to formally apply to become a slow city. If it does and they’re accepted, this quiet revolution will have reached yet another foreign shore. But will it ever make it to the big city?
DR STEFANO CASINI (TRANSLATION):
I think there is a clear difference between cities whose size allows them to choose to go slowly, such as Greve, a small and beautiful town immersed in greenery, and Florence, Rome and Milan, big cities, whose activities force them to compete with the rest of the world, and so their rhythms are dictated by the rest of the world.
HOLT:
Paolo Saturnini is unperturbed. He is happy enough that his ideas have caught on beyond his home town.
PAOLO SATURNINI (TRANSLATION):
I am very surprised by the audience that this movement has had here in Italy, and in the world. That means I have not invented anything. I have just implemented a need that was already there.
HOLT:
Slow cities are easy to knock, but they seem to be deceptively effective. And in the wake of the events of Genoa, they are perhaps a shrewder way of challenging some of the downsides of globalisation. As Greve takes it slowly, the movement it started is spreading fast.
—
Could you imagine what would happen if Mayor Bautista adopted the Slow City concept for Baguio as Mayor Saturnini did for Greve?
“Old Baguio” suddenly seems not so impossible, after all.
God bless you, everyone. Keep fighting the good fight!
Hi again Lisa.
Permission to post this as a follow-up to my last message? Proof that the Slow City concept is growing worldwide.
p.s. that is, if my previous post did not lull everyone to sleep!
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Kakegawa Declares Itself a “Slow Life City”
Shizuoka Prefecture’s Kakegawa City a town of 80,000 residents located south of Tokyo, launched a refreshing initiative by declaring November to be “Slow Life Month,” aiming to become a city that promotes a comfortable lifestyle and relaxed state of mind.
In the late twentieth century, Japan valued and pursued the “fast, cheap, convenient, and efficient” life that brought us economic prosperity. However, it also caused problems such as dehumanization, social ills, and environmental pollution. We would like to move forward, with the slogan “Slow Life,” to achieve “slow, relaxed and comfortable” lifestyles, and shift from a society of mass production and mass consumption, to a society that is not hectic and does cherish our possessions and things of the heart.
Humans live about 700,800 hours (assuming an average life expectancy of 80 years), of which we spend about 70,000 hours working (assuming we work for 40 years). The remaining 630,000 hours are spent on other activities, such as eating, studying, and leisure, including 230,000 hours sleeping. Until now, people often focused their lives on these 70,000 hours of labor, devoting their lives to their companies. However, with the “slow life” principles, we would now like to pay more attention to the 630,000 hours outside of work to achieve true happiness and peace of mind.
The practice of the “Slow Life” involves the following eight themes:
SLOW PACE: We value the culture of walking, to be fit and to reduce traffic accidents.
SLOW WEAR: We respect and cherish our beautiful traditional costumes, including woven and dyed fabrics, Japanese kimonos and Japanese night robes (yukata).
SLOW FOOD: We enjoy Japanese food culture, such as Japanese dishes and tea ceremony, and safe local ingredients.
SLOW HOUSE: We respect houses built with wood, bamboo, and paper, lasting over one hundred or two hundred years, and are careful to make things durably, and ultimately, to conserve our environment.
SLOW INDUSTRY: We take care of our forests, through our agriculture and forestry, conduct sustainable farming with human labor, and ultimately spread urban farms and green tourism.
SLOW EDUCATION: We pay less attention to academic achievement, and create a society in which people can enjoy arts, hobbies, and sports throughout our lifetimes, and where all generations can communicate well with each other.
SLOW AGING: We aim to age with grace and be self-reliant throughout our lifetimes.
SLOW LIFE: Based on the philosophy of life stated above, we live our lives with nature and the seasons, saving our resources and energy.
—
I sincerely believe that Baguio City is sure to benefit from the ideas of a Slow City.
Now, if only we could somehow brainwash the good mayor
Hi Juan Carlos,
Thanks for your support and all those helpful references to the Slow City movement.
Actually this is precisely why I moved from Manila to Baguio (I knew I wanted to quit the rat race in Manila and move to a place where everything was good and beautiful).
I was recently given a whole bunch of other references by Eric Pangilinan, a Baguio boy, and Resty Refuerzo, a Baguio man, on both the slow city movement and the clean up of New York City.
We have formed a small but potent group, (potent because it is a convergence of intelligent, sincere, trustworthy and well-intentioned residents) and slow city is one of the thrusts.
I haven’t started on it yet in this blog because we are still formulating initiatives for a better Baguio.
You have my eternal gratitude though for your concern, support and timely references.
Wish us luck!
Hi Lisa,
For everyone to read, here’s a link:
http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/march2008/is_your_city_a_great_city
Put up speed bumps all over the city so the maximum speed of motor vehicles will be around 30 to 40 kph. (Road humps that are wide and low.)
Go after the motorcycles and scooters that have their original muffler systems replaced with noisy ones.
Sorry Lisa, pahabol…have these humps too before pedestrian lanes.
Hiya Resty,
I was just thinking of speed bumps and the motorcycle mufflers! On my road, which is only busy during school days, all summer long, a few noisy residents of Navy Base would and their motor bikes would rev up and down the street (C.M.Recto).
And since there are schools nearby, yup, I wish the city would consider speed bumps.
Honestly, I agree that Baguio is too vehicle friendly, which in the Philippines means ‘anti-pedestrian.’
put machine guns on the street to ready fire upon those who violate traffic rules…hehe