Another Petition For Baguio City

Have you been receiving emails like I have regarding a petition circulating, where folks are enjoined to add their names and forward? It goes like this:

PETITION for BAGUIO CITY:

We believe that the City of Baguio is culturally, environmentally and aesthetically unique and different from other cities in the Philippines. We believe that Baguio is the nerve center of our rich and diverse cultures: the Filipino culture in general, the highland Cordilleran culture, the lowland Ilocano culture, and the heritage culture brought about by the Americans during the early 20th Century.

We believe that in the past two decades, the City of Baguio has experienced a substantial degradation of its unique culture, environment and art. We believe that the approval of certain politicians with no respect for the aesthetics and the environment of Baguio to put up concrete structures such as malls, overpasses and flyovers only worsens Baguio City’s lamentable decay as a ‘City of Pines.’ We believe that this overdevelopment resulting in pollution has to stop.

We believe that due to its unique history and blend of cultures, Baguio can be to the Philippines as Barcelona is to Spain, Chiang Mai is to Thailand, and San Francisco is to the United States: a main center of arts, culture, philosophy, education, tourism, sustainable development and environmental awareness.

We believe, therefore, that the City of Baguio deserves to be declared a ‘Special Heritage Zone,’ so that the degradation brought about by overdevelopment can be minimized and gradually controlled. We believe that Baguio City’s heritage as a center of culture and environmental awareness is a valuable asset not just to the Philippines, but also to the world.

We now respectfully call on the residents of Baguio and the Filipino people to sign this humble petition, and for the local and national government concerned to implement and declare Special Heritage status on this unique mountain City as soon as possible, preferably before the Baguio Centennial in 2009, so no further destruction on its limited cultural, environmental and aesthetic resources may continue.

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I first read about this petition at the Baguio Web International E-group.

At the time of its writing, there were 163 signatures thereon, and I remember commenting on the originator’s request that we “add your name to the list and send this message to as many people as possible,”  saying:

Hi Jojo,

I would dearly love to add my name to the list, but am concerned that if we farm it out to several people at a time, we all will be number #164!

And the petition will not look well-supported.

Isn’t there another way we can add our names to one list? If we make yet another online petition, it will defeat the purpose because it’s too sluggish. And I mean no offense here to the online petition creators and those of us who took the time to add our names and comments for it’s a pretty solid effort (that I even publicized through Baguio Insider — which reminds me, lemme make a link button for that)

One option I can think of is to create a complete web site for this where each one can add their names in the comment box, but wouldn’t that be just like an online petition? The difference, though, is that
it is easier to create banners for this purpose, and accept donations so we can take out ads in the national papers.

For Search Engine Optimization purposes, the site will gain a lot of weight when the comments are added thereto, or the site linked up.

Any additional thoughts on this #164 dilemma?

Actually, I made a mistake in the count as there were already 184, not 164 signatures thereon.

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