I voiced my objection to a “beautification project” at the Military Circle, at the junction of Upper Session Road, South Drive and Loakan Road near the old main gate of Camp John Hay, back in 1981.
The design was for a modern sculpture featuring the American and Philippine flags in a copulating “embrace” of some kind to symbolize RP-US relationship. Apart from being cheesy and corny, I thought cement did not come in multiple colors. They would have to paint on the two flags’ colors. Given our propensity for forgetting the maintenance of any facility as soon as the inaugural fever has subsided, I knew that in a matter of time all those bright reds, whites, blues and yellows would fade, chip off or be consumed by lichens, moss or some other fungi. Then you’d end up with this unsightly formless gob of grey-black concrete resembling an upended turd. I was right.
I again objected to a similar “beautification” project, this time at the now-gone traffic island that used to stand at the junction of Governor Pack Road, Harrison Road and UP Drive, right off the Baguio-Benguet Museum, this time in 1982. It was for another outdoor sculpture—no Henry Moore, however—but a disproportional depiction of a native “kayabang”—that head-borne vegetable basket used by Cordilleran women to carry upland farm produce. Hey, don’t call me sexist, because I have NEVER seen a man with a kayabang on his head.
We in media (specifically Gold Ore) called it the “vegetable island” not because the kayabang brimmed over with limp crucifer leaves--pechay, wombok and a few eggplants dangling to one side--but because, like the expression “being a vegetable,” it was totally useless. Discounting its aesthetics, or lack of it, all it did was cause several traffic accidents at that junction among distracted motorists. I suppose drivers couldn’t handle the multi-tasking involved in hating the design so much and minding their driving at the same time. Besides, eggplant is NOT a highland vegetable and I have yet to see a kayabang full of it. I found this pretentiousness of some Manila-bred architect trying too hard to suck up to Igorot culture by misrepresenting its iconic symbols even more offensive than flattering.
Then there’s all these funeral crypt-looking “clean restrooms”—there’s one right off Lake Drive and Abad Santos drive fronting the BWD booster pump, beside the Peppot Ilagan Media Camp picnic grounds. There’s another one at the far corner of the horse briddle path in Wright Park, and one at the Post office Loop island park on Fr. Carlu Street opposite the old Patria building (now Porta Vaga). The last one, I think, has been repurposed as the headquarters of the BB-PICAG but it, too, was a restroom at some point.
Because of its massive and hideous mausoleum-like design, we called it “masilyas”—a contraction of mausoleum and kasilyas (toilet).
There there’s the uniform design element of all flyovers, welcome arches, government building facades and similar structures all over Baguio City. It seems the architects insisted on turning all structural beams, columns, and boards into fake pine logs. These are not living room fixtures, mind you, they are TRAFFIC CONTROL structures. In other countries, these would be painted bright international hazard yellow so that motorists could see them and AVOID COLLISIONS with them. But for some reason, we insist on camouflaging these heavy concrete barriers to make them look like harmless, flexible and maybe even lifesaving impact-absorbing soft wood. I keep wondering how many hapless drivers who have lost their brakes actually aimed for these things, thinking, “Aha! Wood! Here is where I ram my car on purpose and get a better chance of surviving!”
You see, I voiced all these objections at “public consultations” then called for by the Marcos-era Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA). Everything I said at those consultation meetings literally went in one ear and out the other. The reason, which is fairly obvious, is that the meetings were NOT meant to be an occasion for people to affect the design of these projects. They were meant to be forums for their designers to extol the virtue of their own designs before a captive audience. The sad reality is that these projects have big-ticket budgets and once you get some project implementors convinced they can get their hands on that money, there is NO WAY you can make them let go.
Secondly, all the proceedings of these consultation meetings never see the light of day again. They really never become “public.” They are recorded in private minutes and turned over to the p-r people to help them tailor an appropriate response to future criticism.
I was always amazed at how the PTA could parry subsequent criticisms, pivoting off some points I remember I said at their public consultation sessions. It left me feeling "used" in a sense because now I couldn't criticize the same thing as much without arguing with myself. Don't look now but by offering myself as the "virus" the PTA was able to develop "antibodies" that blunted all further valid dissent. In effect, I have unwittingly volunteered my imprimatur to the very project I was opposing.
So now I would rather write a comprehensive expository and publish them myself on social media. This way I can directly affect public sentiment about a project. People reacting to my articles generate more public opinion than there can be people you can jam into a small conference room. Best of all, no one can "contain" my points or repurpose them for their own opposing agenda.
If you sense a high level of cynicism in this, you are very discerning.
I have been invited to attend another public consultation--this time on the Session Road Uglification Project. No, thank you--if I went, there’s a good chance they might have to drag me out of the room. Not for misbehaving, or being unruly, or anything like that but simply because I would be in the wrong place.
The consultation session would have been convened so that CHANGES can be made to the DETAILS OF THE PROJECT—but not to wage a referendum on whether the project should even push through at all.
You see, my position on the Session Road Uglification Project is simple: DROP THE WHOLE THING.
I feel as if my wife was asking me, “Should I cut my hair, color it, buy a more expensive lipstick, mascara, eyeliner, etc? What do you think?”
I would tell her, “Honey, don’t mess with perfection. Don’t do a goddamn thing. I find you the most beautiful just the way you are!”
I have also lost count of how many pictures of the old Baguio I have seen and thought, “I wish we could go back to making Baguio look like THAT again!”
If you hate the way Session Road looks like today, imagine comparing that with what it would horribly look like ten, fifteen years from now—let alone fifty.”
To quote my mayor Benjie Magalong, "If it ain't broke, dont fix it." No matter how many times you try to improve it, the best shape for a wheel is still ROUND.
Drop it. Just drop it, please.*
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