Write a Letter for Baguio

Written on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 7:02 pm | by Marck Ronald Rimorin

I’m a Baguio boy.  It’s been three months since I last breathed deep of the scent of pines, all thanks to a job I have to take up here at Metro Manila.  As such, if you may allow me to do so, let me write about the plight of my hometown here at Filipino Voices.  This is also a plea for help to those of you who have the resources to save what you can of Baguio, as I am sure you have spent at least one summer vacation there.

Lisa Araneta of iBaguio writes that 1,000 trees are in danger of being cut in Baguio City.  Expansions and development projects threaten about 500 trees at the GSIS lot near Baguio Convention Center.  Woodlands at Loakan and Camp John Hay may probably be cut down, as Lisa says, in favor of - egad - call centers and other corporate expansion projects.  Pretty soon, the scent of pines that come from Baguio City will come from one of those Little Tree pine-scented car air fresheners.

I guess that somewhere along the line, we must voice out our care for what really matters: home.  For all the disparaging comments you would hear about Baguio nowadays, there’s really no place like home.  All these trees may be cut, and all these paradises may be paved to put up parking lots, in the name of “development.”

Mayor Reinaldo Bautista, Jr. has this to say.

Lisa has online petitions over at her website, but I have to agree that gathering petitions through the Internet are not as good as they should be.  I don’t want to go home one day and see that little forest in front of UP Baguio gone, and see a mini-version of Eastwood City or Ortigas Center somewhere in the City of Pines.  Or at the very least, see more Koreans.  Or more pay-parking schemes.

I’m sure you don’t want to, either.  I’m sure that you have probably taken long trips to Baguio City to have a picnic, to savor the fresh cold air, and to enjoy the majesty that only the mountains could offer.  Because of development aggression and whatever benefit there is making Manila a development paradigm, pretty soon Baguio will be gone.

Which got me thinking: why can’t we write the Mayor of Baguio City himself?

If you love Baguio, and if you don’t like the idea of chainsaws buzzing across the pine trees that makes the city what it is, I suggest that you send letters and course it through any of these media:

To write the Mayor through snail mail:
Hon. Mayor Reinaldo Bautista, Jr.
City Mayor
Baguio City Hall
Baguio City 2600

To write the Mayor through Multiply (yes, he has one):
http://peterreybautista.multiply.com/

To write the Mayor through Blogspot (again, he has one):
http://peterreybautista.blogspot.com/

Please write Mayor Bautista that cutting down trees, traffic rerouting, sidewalk vending, and overall political pagpapa-gwapo will not save the City from a future of decay.  Please let him know that you care more for Baguio than what he assumes.  Somewhere along the line, I hope that the Mayor’s Office would be flooded with enough letters that he’ll actually do something good for the City.  Baguio needs your help: if not for your next summer vacation, do it for the sake of the coolest city in the Philippines.

Thanks!  :)

xoxo (damn, i should stop watching “gossip girl”),
marocharim

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About The Author: Marck Ronald Rimorin is a twenty-something blogger, "critic," and writer from Baguio City, and currently works in Metro Manila as a writer. His personal blog is at The Marocharim Experiment

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Comments

6 Responses to “Write a Letter for Baguio”

  1. cvj on June 8th, 2008 8:42 pm

    Ok Marck, i have posted a comment in Mayor Bautista’s blogspot.

  2. benign0 on June 9th, 2008 10:02 am

    Ganyan talaga. Pinoys have the opposite of the Midas touch. Anything touched by Pinoy hands turn into crap.

  3. Lester Cavestany on June 9th, 2008 5:37 pm

    I saw on Mayor Bautista’s multiply page that his email address is peterreybautista@gmail.com - Perhaps if you have any inquiries or questions about this issue, you can send him an email.

  4. resty on June 11th, 2008 8:08 pm

    “Ganyan talaga. Pinoys have the opposite of the Midas touch. Anything touched by Pinoy hands turn into crap.” -benign0

    Oo nga, bakit kaya ganun?

  5. albert on September 7th, 2008 9:26 am

    dear sir,
    may ireport lang po ako sa inyo. sa cooyeesan may mga manloloko sa mga costumer. bumili ng bagong ref ang kapatid ko. nung idineliver ay ang ibinigay ang ang nakadisplay ang dapat ay ang bagong ref. sana makarating ito sa right people.
    thanks.
    concern costumer lang po.

  6. Lisa on September 20th, 2008 1:42 pm

    Hi Marck,

    It’s bad enough they took the track oval of UP Baguio to build the Baguio Convention Center in the 1970s.

    There was a hue and cry about giving that young forest across (and right along with it the Convention Center) so that Henry Sy and SM can take that GSIS property - again - so they can plant some more buildings thereon, and do away with hundreds of pine trees in the process. This of course was to be done with the full consent and cooperation of the Baguio City Mayor.

    So far plans are on hold, as far as I can tell, with Congressman Domogan belatedly joining in on the protest (but if there was no protest, he was probably going to go with the plans) — but we have to keep our ears peeled because these people have a penchant for screwing the citizens over, again and again.

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