The move will save one part of the besieged Mehan. The City’s Park and Ride project, on the other hand, is all but inaugurated, despite a standing cease and desist order from the DENR. The news is that the facility will be bidded out for use by a provincial bus company – with the city banning all other services than the winning bid from using Manila and this terminal. This effectively sets up a monopoly and perpetuates the traffic problem in the area.
(One wonders why provincial buses are still allowed into the urban core when the system should be that bus terminals be allowed only at the metropolitan periphery feeding into the city bus and LRT/MRT system from there. Doesn’t Metro Manila coordinate its urban planning with the DOTC? Whose job is this anyway? Is it the MMDA’s? The DOTC’s? The local LGU’s? Do any of our public servants care?)
The HCS informs us that the penalty for violating the DENR order is P50,000 a day. They say that if and when this accumulates to Park and Ride’s declared project cost of P20 million, "the DENR and the NHI can then move to have the property attached in payment for the fine and ultimately have it demolished." Remember that some valuable archeological artifacts lay beneath as the area was the site of several pre-Spanish and Spanish-era settlements.
The Mehan Gardens itself is going to pot. The park needs to be re-landscaped with sensitivity to the original designs as well as to be able to accommodate contemporary uses that integrate it with the LRT terminal, the Arroceros Forest Park nearby and eventually, a resurrected Metropolitan Theater. The Met’s case, by the way, is still up in the air – I hope one day we do not wake up to find this masterpiece in pieces! (Remember the Jai Alai?)
A revived Mehan Gardens district would surely score points for Mayor Atienza with a public starved for open space and greenery. The Met Theater rehab would cost a huge sum while the recovery of the gardens would entail only a fraction of the cost of the parking building. Several NGOs, aside from the HCS, have already offered their support and assistance. (We can all come out of this smelling like roses instead of smelling the diesel fumes from hundreds of obnoxious buses and jeepneys. So what gives?)
The broader problems of Intramuros still need to be addressed. Basic infrastructure that services both residents and tourists is breaking down. Informal settlers are multiplying and may soon approximate its early 1960 population (when the whole district was one big slum). Portions of the district are prone to flooding, outdoor lighting is so dim and spotty, turning off most visitors save the brave and foolhardy. Business is in the doldrums while public recreational facilities in its periphery (tennis courts and the like) are allowed to degenerate into mud flats because of unresolved court cases.
The IA continues most of its appointed task of bringing back the walls and historic structures but what Intramuros lacks, or has lost sight of, is a vision of its place and role as the heritage and cultural core of Manila. It needs to be reintegrated with its surrounds, with the city’s social as well as physical fabric. Housing the poor and marginalized is a task that has to be addressed from a metropolitan (and national) level, but smart metro governance, urban design and tourism planning can find solutions within the walls.
The problem seems to be that of misplaced priorities on the part of the government agencies involved. The DOT/PTA has seen fit to continue the controversial waterfront project started under the discredited Estrada administration. The several hundred million pesos that the project will entail would be better used for the Intramuros and Rizal Park itself. Officials seem to assume that concerned citizens have short memories. Are we going to sacrifice free access to our bay’s famous sunset and historic promenade in exchange for a P250-million white elephant? If not for the Intramuros or the Mehan, imagine what a quarter-billion pesos could do in terms of housing for the poor, or education for the city’s children!
The Heritage Conservation Society has other ongoing and planned programs for public service via pro-active bureaus in education, design, and law. The society also continues with its public outreach with speaking engagements and educational campaigns. The most successful program has been its popular walking tours. In fact, there are three tours of the Intramuros Walls in the next three months – Jan. 19, Feb. 16 and March 9. (Call 521-22-39 or 522-24-97 for more information or reservations.)
With no foreign aid or corporate sponsorships, the society has managed to carry on with its uphill task of saving what little we have of our precious heritage. To quote John Silva, one of the society’s directors, on what keeps the society going, "It is just passion converted into resources."
It is this passion to serve and conserve, preserve and persevere that makes the HCS a model for the rest of civil society. It is this passion for service that we must seek from our public servants. It is this passion for, and appreciation of, our own culture that we must seek to recover in ourselves. Cultural recovery is moral recovery. Without this, no amount of political or economic recovery is sustainable.