Baguio Insider

Here we go again! First they want to set up a flea market, albeit a temporary one, to ‘uglify’ Burnham Park and give the street hawkers and itinerant vendors a ‘home’ using an area of the park considered ‘idle land.’ Helloooo — parks are supposed to be idle. Like nothing on them except benches, and the occasional activity. That’s the reason for their existence — to give us some peace and quiet and allow us to breathe. Why are our government officials so eager to stuff crappy-looking businesses into it? As if the eateries there, including the restaurants on either side are not decrepit enough.

And if I recall correctly, sometime in the early 2000s, the local government conducted a public bidding for that flea market contract, a businessman won it fair and square, but could not come up with the extra cash to get the contract ‘confirmed’ by the city council, a start up capital ‘expense’ that was not anticipated by the winning bidder. So the project was cancelled and many lost money and opportunities as a result of this.

The city council has approved a whopping amount of Php400,000,000.00 to merely ‘landscape and preserve’ beautiful Burnham Park, the central showpiece of Baguio City. Hey, for that amount, we can build a whole new Baguio elsewhere! Are these people talking about ‘vertical’ developments like a huge mall (not that I want any type of building on Burnham Park)? NO! So why Php400-M?

The planned redesign of this masterpiece of a park, named after its original designer — famous American urban planner and architect Daniel H. Burnham — and whose beauty lies in its wide open spaces and clean layout, is composed of the following, according to recent news:

For the children’s playground, there is the proposed construction of gazebo in the entrance, improvement of bicycle pavilions and freeway, trellis for a shade area, installation of interesting child friendly playground equipment and construction of an extreme sport area, graffiti wall and skateboard area.

As per the plan, the proposed activities for the other cluster areas are as follows:

• Rose Garden — proposal for setting up of trellis, rose vines and flowers and construction of a senior citizen’s park to be located at the upper portion of the Rose Garden;
• Orchidarium — proposal for landscaping arrangements in the area and flower exhibit area for concessionaires to attract visitors and tourists and green houses;
• Igorot Garden — to be maintained as a chess and dama area; landscaping and improvement of the ihaw-ihaw and restaurants to keep up with tourism standards;
• Burnham Lake area — landscaping, ornamental and flower gardens, lake gardens, seedling nursery, uniform boat jetties for concessionaires and the plan to demolish the view deck;
• Melvin Jones grandstand and football field — proposal for another parking area at the back of the Solibao Restaurant;
• Skating Rink — preserve skating rink kiosk and improvement of the benches around;
• Picnic Grove — eliminate parking, loading and unloading of vehicles, plant additional pine trees;
• Athletic Bowl — improve the grandstand extending it to the tennis area and underneath will be converted into offices, bathroom and athlete’s shower areas;
• Japanese Peace Tower area — preservation of the area.
• Pines Trees of the World area — plant additional pine trees, re-greening of the area; and
• Sunshine Park — known as “Freedom Park” and improve the existing gazebo and flowering plants area.

If you will look at the list above, except for the Children’s Playground and Athletic Bowl areas, a lot of the proposed work entails merely planting additional pine trees and the preservation of the area. Come on! Baguio grows it own seedlings and plants, spending millions per year on the salaries of about a hundred Park personnel who are tasked with the re-greening and cleanliness efforts. How much do they expect to spend to plant trees, flowers and seedlings we already own. Labor? These guys are on payroll, and if necessary get some student volunteers. What do we have hundreds of thousands of students here for? Get the citizens to help instead of bidding out these contracts.

Ok, let’s tackle everthing point by point, shall we?

1. Children’s Playground.

Of course we need a better, safer children’s playground! Less dusty and less dangerous elements. Can’t the owners of the universities and schools in Baguio donate a portion of their huge earnings for this? After all, they hardly provide any open fields, playgrounds or recreational areas for their students because there is, after all, Burnham Park nearby.

I am glad they want an extreme sports area, finally, because slides and swings are just for the pre-adolescents these days. The older ones need something more challenging like a supervised extreme sports area, where the kids are properly geared up, something we have been talking about for years now. Maybe a graffiti wall and skateboard area will stop the kids from vandalizing the city, or committing physical injury felonies if they can apply all that energy to these activities.

By the way, isn’t the Baguio City public library in this area? How come there’s no mention of any plans for it? Do we not want the kids to read or learn anymore? Or is there no money in maintaining a library so no one cares? Shouldn’t we take pride in owning all the books about Baguio, our cultural heritage and other literature as well. If they said, ‘Php400-M for books’ I would not bat an eyelash to support the plan.

2. Rose Garden.

All proposals well and good. How expensive would it be to set up the trellis or gazebo? Cheap lumber and metal will suffice. They’re not proposing a glass and granite structure here. And shouldn’t the whole of Burnham Park have areas accessible to children, senior citizens and the disabled? Why single the seniors out? Why attempt to confine them to a particular area?

3. Orchidarium.

Landscaping arrangements and flower exhibit areas. Come on, aren’t those existing at the Orchidarium already? And if we need to showcase landscaping, then let the concessionaires handle it at no cost to the city. After all, that is their business and they stand to benefit if they landscape their portion of Burnham Park.

4. Igorot Garden.

How much will it cost simply to ‘maintain‘ it as a chess and dama (chinese checkers) area? Just clean up the area and remove any obstructions. Folks think that is a wholesome activity. Not so! Those who play there gamble all day over these games. Very few play for fun. I know of this situation as a member of my staff is one of those ‘play-chess-for-money’ addicts.

And as for those turo-turo / inihaw areas — please! Are they a necessary and enhancing feature of Burnham Park? Definitely not! How will they ever conform to tourism and sanitation standards when they are located on the side of Burnham Park that is subjected to all the smoke-belching by parked and passing jeepneys? How about plumbing, sewage and garbage disposal? How much rent will the city charge for as rent for the restaurant buildings? I would actually vote to REMOVE those existing eyesores with expensive viands (’platitong’ pusit with 5 slices over vegetable chopsuey for Php200 last Holy Week, much to the chagrin of my guests from Bicol). How necessary is a frigging turo-turo area for Burnham Park that the city is willing to spend on new buildings?

5. Burnham Lake.

The Burnham Park Management Authority wants to demolish the view deck due to the illicit activities going on there. What a reactionary way of thinking! Just because the parks management is unable to prevent some folk from using it for their nocturnal lascivious predispositions, they want to tear down the one place where parents can sit and watch their children enjoying the lake. The city officials say they want a coffee shop there instead. To prevent anything untoward from happening at Burnham Park while it is unsupervised, just make it off limits to pedestrians and vehicles at night and say it’s for their own safety (see Conclusion below).

6. Melvin Jones Grandstand and Football Field.

The only item in the proposal would be to create another parking area behind Solibao Restaurant. Whatever for? So the office workers on Harrison Road will be able to leave their cars there for 8 hours at a time? What a high price the city must spend to be able to charge Php20/car/day! I would say that if Burnham Park were to have parking areas that there be a 2-hour limit set so that everyone could have access. Shouldn’t the football field be moved to the center of the Athletic Oval instead? So that spectators can watch the games from the grandstand? So that Melvin Jones can have cemented pathways and just be used for large assemblies instead?

And I must say that that idea of holding Motocross activities there last summer did nothing for Baguio except to tear up the whole football field! Who was responsible for that? Was it the city who had to pay for the repairs/restoration? Did the rent cover these extra costs? Whose project was that anyway?

And should the city not invest in an outdoor sound system that would justify charging a high rental rate for that very large area? So that maybe we could have cooking demos and other similar activities going on at the grandstand on weekends and regular days…

Skating Rink.

Didn’t Baguio spend to build the most expensive skating rink at that time some years ago? How much of the Php400-M will go to merely repairing a kiosk and improving benches for goodness’ sake?

Picnic Grove.

How much of the P400M will it cost to ‘eliminate parking, loading and unloading of vehicles, plant additional pine trees at the Picnic Grove?’ Zero pesos, people! And why are they not talking here about a better picnic area? Or barbecue grills-for-rent instead? At the Go Baguio! website, I am forever encouraging visitors to go and have a picnic to enjoy the beautiful ourdoors, since Baguio is one of the rare places in the Philippines with a pleasant climate so it would be good to have this area ‘developed’ for that purpose. Which means large garbage bins and daily waste disposal. Or they can require the picnickers to clean up after themselves and bring their trash away with them.

Athletic Bowl.

Of course the grandstand needs improvement and expansion. How about building a multi-purpose gym for indoor sports activities near the entrance instead of allowing provincial buses to use it as a depot or to put a flea market there? Our kids need a martial arts, badminton and/or table tennis area. This need not be expensive like a basketball court, which all the universities and barangay centers have anyway, just a large hall with good natural ventilation will do. And the shower stall can be located adjacent to it to save on walls. Now as for offices, those just need to be small and simple. Do they need to be located here? Or are they merely justifying an unnecessary expense? How much paperwork will a park require? The existing parks superintendent’s office is not crowded.

And they can move the football field to the center of the track oval. There’s enough space for that. So that football games can be held there a spectator sport. There are no bleachers at Melvin Jones from which we can watch a game.

Japanese Peace Tower.

Just a bit of clearing of that inaccessible and dangerous Japanese Peace Tower area behind the swimming pool, or relocate the Tower (which is full of graffiti by the way) to the Japanese Garden (above photo) right across instead and maintain the overgrowth there as a forest preserve. Why do we have to have two areas for the Japanese who violated Baguio during WWII?

Pine Trees of the World

Of course we have to plant additional pine trees — everywhere. I believe that’s what this area was designed for, wasn’t it? Aren’t the Park employees doing this on a regular basis? Do we need to allocate a portion of Php400-M for this?

Sunshine Park

Oh leave that alone! It’s not falling apart. In fact, it’s in very good condition. Touching it is just an excuse to justify a bloated budget for Burnham Park. Stop sucking up to the SM people across it. The graffiti that the little criminal fraternities have spray-painted on the walls can be painted over cheaply and easily.

Conclusion.

Basically, it defies reasoning that such a huge amount will be allocated for such pithy projects in the guise of development. Is this just another excuse to line pockets, much like that allocation of a mind-blowing Php100-M to merely STUDY where to put a herb garden, aviary and butterfly sanctuary in Botanical Garden?

Good Guy City Adminitrator Peter Fianza — a very decent fellow — refuses to move without a masterplan. Understand this, the BPMA submitted a proposal WITHOUT A MASTERPLAN! Where did they get the amount of Php400-M then? From the top of their heads?

What Burnham Park needs is a MARKETING PLAN more than anything. We need to determine what we want it used for, what projects or activities we should have that will make it a vibrant place to rival Baguio’s favorite promenade area, SM City Baguio. The marketing plan can institutionalize activities, work on its strengths and deal with the weaknesses.

Obviously, the city does not think of Burnham Park as a source of revenue — and rightly so — otherwise they would not think of spending Php400-M while charging miniscule rental amounts from all the folks doing business there, unless the real purpose for this expenditure is for folks to make a kickback from spending this huge amount on landscaping. So before we undertake to waste the money, here are things we can do without spending much:

1. Close Burnham Park to pedestrian and vehicular traffic at 7:00 p.m. onwards unless there is an event going on, or disallow overnight parking in the area. This way we do not have to spend on security for illicit sex activities or crime prevention. Do not allow budget tourists to camp out there in their cars and trash the place — what would be the point of that? Why should we spend money for their security? It’s a simple matter of adding a few gates.

2. Add mounted police as tourist police during the day, perhaps, as an additional tourist attraction, too for the security of the people. I know, I know, horses are expensice to maintain. But they would make us very quaint little town.

3. Plan institutional activities such as kite-flying, tai chi, outdoor aerobics and the like at Melvin Jones. Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, cooking demos, pet shows or maybe a food festival in January, a senior citizens walking session. Let us not wait for a multinational company marketing a chocolate beverage to rent the place before any kite-flying happens there.

4. Require Solibao and Ganza to initiate improvements on their 30-year old buildings. New furniture perhaps? I suppose, for the miniscule amount of rent paid for the past 3 decades, the owners have more than recouped their investment here. It’s time to give back for the privilege of occupying prime Baguio real estate, to have a monopoly on restaurants in the area, and the right to sublet the same to all those ugly hotdog and ice cream stalls there. If I am not mistaken, their contract was for 25 years. They lease contracts were renewed? Without a public bidding? Weren’t those restaurants allowed there to provide clean public restrooms in the first place?

5. Demolish ugly structures like the turo-turo, disguise the clean restrooms with snack bars our souvenir counters — that painted sign for the public toilets is just sooo ‘in your face,’ totally crude and unbecoming of a top tourist destination. Whose design idea was that? He should be fired!

6. All the proposed tree planting and landscaping can be done very, very gradually, using existing available plants, materials and labor. As if Burham Park is not landscaped well enough all over.

7. Lighting up Burnham Park, or even Baguio City streets for that matter, will prevent crime. I’d really rather spend on prevention than add policemen. So, especially if the park’s operates for 24 hours a day, adequate lighting is very necessary.

If there’s one thing that showcases Baguio’s strengths and weaknesses it is this beautiful piece of property around which everything else was designed. Any plan to touch it must be studied carefully so that it becomes the benchmark for all developments planned for the city. The true test of progress is how we keep it a wide, open, uncluttered space filled with wholesome activities for residents and visitors, young and old, to enjoy.