Cleanliness is next to Godliness

A passage that continues to fascinate me since childhood reads "cleanliness is next to Godliness." God being the first, all others, including to be clean, rank next.  Without pretending to possess profound religiosity because I am not endowed with any learning in that regard, I have taken the above saying to mean not just spiritual cleanness which is unseen to the human eye but physical as well, considering that it is the one that is visible. The above advisory therefore is to take the subject of cleanliness in this column today purely in the physical sense.

At a certain stretch, Sanciangco Street separates the University of the Visayas and the center of barangay Kamagayan. Even if only the rear gate of the university abuts the road, still many of its students and faculty pass thru this part of Sanciangco Street.

UV students are not the only users of this road. Some of the students of the University of San Carlos and the Concord Institute of Technology also use this road in going to their school. It is so because along Sanciangco Street and nearby areas, there are many dormitories and residential homes who admit students as lodgers. In going to their schools, they naturally had to use this road.

This week, as I resumed teaching at the Gullas Law School, thanks to the invitation of Sirs Eddie and Dodong Gullas, I walked from the law office to school. Yes, you guessed it correctly. I passed thru Sanciangco Street. And I noticed that, first, the road is not well maintained and second, its sidewalk is a picture of how dirty dirt can be.

This road is well within the area that is defined by a city ordinance as business district. It runs parallel to Colon Street on one side and P. del Rosario on the other side, and cuts thru Junquera, Osmeña Boulevard and Leon Kilat Street. Yet, it seems that the perception of many city officials is that this road is, to recall a title of a movie that was shown some four decades ago, far from the maddening crowd. While Colon and P. del Rosario Streets and Osmena Boulevard are very well paved and regularly maintained with high-grade concrete or smooth asphalt, the paving of Sanciangco was done by the public works office eons ago. Karon, morag ampaw ang hitsura!

The condition of its sidewalk is worse. It is dangerous to walk on it even for athletic students without focusing on every step made. It is so uneven that certain steps are some inches lower than where the feet land on the next strides. There is no question the likelihood of any less attentive passer tripping is quite high.

On the area that was known as the City Center, the sidewalk is full of obstacles. There are tables, chairs, barbecue stands, ice coolers, and even folding beds in addition to extension display and work shelves all competing for space. Why, I saw fighting cocks there too!

I am sure that the officials of Barangay Kamagayan must have seen all these. But, I am not prepared to second-guess that they have in their agenda, making this area worth the stature of being inside the city's business district. Their unwillingness to do anything to address the concerns that I have mentioned above only shores even further to the derogatory stigma of the barangay's being red light district of the city.

Here is where the city government can come in. It has the capability and the resources to lift this portion of Barangay Kamagayan from its ugly, dirty and unclean condition. If it pours some funds to pave the Sanciangco Street and sends its workers to re-phase the sidewalk, it gives added meaning to "cleanliness is next to Godliness."

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