Now is just about the best time to wrestle, as a community of concerned residents, with the host of urban difficulties we’ve been enduring here in Baguio these past many years, for much of them running in decades now. Garbage, water, bad air, not much health assistance, graduates unmatched in skills to industry needs — name it and that would be enough for the loud hiccups not worth having these days when we’re marking yet another milestone year, the 109th Foundation Day of our beloved city.
By law, the Ecological Waste Management Act of 2000, we are mandated to take care of our daily trash based on a fundamental tripartite strategy of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. That means the waste we generate daily goes through this 3-stage process before the garbage people pick up the balance, as segregated into the biodegradable and the non-bio, and brought to an engineered sanitary landfill for conversion into compost fertilizer or to energy. As for re-usable and recyclable items, these are brought to material recovery centers for livelihood-augmenting activities for added income.
Eighteen years moving forward, we’re still quagmired in trash. Feeble efforts have marked local compliance with this basic law on waste management and disposition. Local governments, including ours, had to discard the use of open dumpsite that had served as “tambakan” all through the years. To this day, we’re still in the sordid work of having to haul garbage out and dump this in landfills elsewhere, the farther the better. It’s sordid work for our garbage menfolk, though good business for those in charge.
As for the ESL, that magical word we’ve been hearing in past years, it’s still a pipedream, probably enough to last beyond our lifetime. Last heard, the ESL is now bruited about to be an integrated waste disposal process that largely converts our trash into usable energy. Laast heard though, Itogon (where the site would be set up) is opposed to hosting the project, even as Baguio and nearby BLISST communities would seem attracted to the idea. Last heard, the LGUs are still grappling over this longest-running trash talk, outclassing any De Mille production in scope.
Enough water, not just a pittance of what we’re getting from our faucets each day. Again, it’s ironical that for a city that has the heaviest rainfall anywhere else throughout the country, water is a perennial need, since time immemorial, since the time of Lolo and Lola when they were still in their dreamy years. The Sto. Tomas rainbasin facility has been thankfully rehabilitated to catch all that precious heaven-sent liquid, store it, and dispose to serve the city’s southern parts, about 25% of the city’s household and business needs. That’s the good news, seeing that it works fully is just a matter of time.
Mothballed after the 1990 earthquake, this facility should have been repaired soon after, but our water officials were then opting for a bulk water scheme that got kicked around, bidded out, and eventually swept under for one reason or another. If our rain harvesting systems are all it takes to supply any part of Baguio, it’s a wonder why no such other facilities were built all through the years for the other city sections to have a good, regular water source. All it took was about a P100 million grant to repair the Sto. Tomas catch basin, surely 3 other facilities would not have cost more than the close to P1billion that had been spent to trash our waste out there.
It’s just not bad air that we’re getting our kids to breathe in and out these days. Even older folks are frequenting health stations for the respiratory ailment they’re suffering from. It’s bad, toxic air, the kind that by its scent alone, you’d know is not good pure air. That’s a pity really, since Baguio has been nationally and globally known for its purest air in the olden times. Where we are getting this kind of air is no longer a matter of location. It’s wherever motorized vehicles converge, and that’s wherever in Baguio. Of course, the closer one is within the CBD area, the closer you’d be to be hard of breath simply because you’d rather not breathe at all.
This is perhaps one surest cause why health needs are in priority level these days. More people are getting afflicted these days, but instead of having to cough up close to a fortune to afford the skyrocketing cost of health testing, medication, and procedures, families would rather just have their health get momentary relief, patch-up remedies, and stronger prayers. One should never get sick these days, for the medical bills will surely run one over when the rampaging train gets by.
Getting by is how our employable youths are striving at, frustrated that all their educational achievement can do is just that, get by while opportunities remain as aspirations. More often than not, our graduating youths simply get out of education and stay there for long until dear ol’ opportunity knocks in. Simply, their abilities, their skills, their attitudes are not attractions to the kind of jobs available, accessible, and up for grabs.
Waste, water, air, health, jobs — these are urban woes that are among our day-to-day concerns. As we mark Baguio’s 109th year, may these woes dissipate in the coming years. Far too long have the years been wasted opportunities. Fine, let there be fostered a culture of caring and creativity, but, back to basics, shouldn’t we first discard the culture of impunity that has perpetrated the cycle of inaction, indifference, and insensitivity all these recent years?
Happy healthy Baguio to everyone out there!
