White elephant

During the long weekend I decided to take a short drive with my mom out of the city to revisit a spot that offers one of the best views in Southern Tagalog: People’s Park in Tagaytay.

From the park, the panoramic views of Cavite, Taal Volcano, Tagaytay ridge and the lakeside towns of Batangas are as splendid as ever. Each time I visit the unfinished mansion in the park, however, it looks more rundown, and I wonder if it will simply be allowed to continue deteriorating until it tumbles down from decay.

I’m amazed that the building is still standing 37 years after construction started. Like the Marcos clan, the structure has withstood the test of time. Neither rust nor termites can bring down the mansion’s frame. The government obviously believes it’s durable enough to accommodate visitors without the risk of any portion collapsing and causing injury.

And there was quite a crowd last Saturday afternoon, the middle of yet another long weekend. At ground level there were horses for rent or for taking photographs. On the third floor there were more photo opportunities – with a live python, a baby crocodile or an exquisite macaw. Telescopes can be rented and a guy helped people focus cameras in the mild fog and diffused sunlight.

I knew I was on the third floor only because a sign said the coffee shop was on the second floor below. At around 4 p.m., merienda time, the coffee shop was empty, probably because visitors were worried that the coffee might make them want to empty their bladder, and the only public toilet in the entire park was closed for the day. Why? Because the day’s supply of water had run out, according to a park employee.

After walking past souvenir shops, I climbed up to a shrine of the Virgin Mary, called Our Lady, Mother of Fair Love. A marker said the image was installed on Dec. 15, 1974. When construction of the mansion began in 1981, workers could not destroy with several dynamite blasts the rock where the image was installed, so it was left intact and a shrine was instead built at the site.

The shrine alone could draw a regular stream of visitors, so the park deserves improvement. The government collects P30 per visitor as entrance fee, and a jeepney charges P40 to drive a small group up the steep, sharply winding road to the summit from the spot where cars are no longer allowed to enter.

Around this entrance are more souvenir shops promoting the park and Tagaytay and selling products made in Cavite and neighboring Batangas, plus more horses for rent.

If only to sustain those livelihoods and even expand them, the government should revive the People’s Park in the Sky.

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During the Marcos dictatorship, it was called the Palace in the Sky by the folks whose greatest frustration must have been that they were not born to royalty.

Construction of the mansion was stepped up in 1983 amid reports that the US president at the time, the Marcoses’ friend Ronald Reagan and possibly first lady Nancy, were coming to visit in early November. The mansion was meant to serve as the Reagans’ guesthouse, but the visit was canceled amid the turbulence in the Philippines following the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. on Aug. 21, 1983.

The political unrest must have also tempered the “edifice complex” of the conjugal dictatorship. The Palace in the Sky was abandoned and began rotting away.

After the collapse of the Marcos regime in 1986, Corazon Aquino understandably couldn’t stand living in Malacañang Palace or to finish that other “palace” in Tagaytay that was one of the symbols of the excesses of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

The unfinished project, however, is in such an ideal spot for tourism and it’s a waste not to develop the area. It has been renamed as a people’s park, and President Duterte, who wants Malacañang to be called an office rather than a palace, is unlikely to restore the old name.

Since Duterte has no emotional baggage when it comes to matters concerning the Marcoses, perhaps his administration can turn the white elephant into something more useful for the government.

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The mansion sits at the summit of Mount Gonzales, 2,500 feet above sea level, and is visible for miles around. The summit used to house a radar station of what was then called the Bureau of Air Transportation. Now it has one of the Doppler radars of PAGASA or the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

Improving the property can generate more earnings to make it self-sustaining while at the same time boosting the livelihoods of residents around the park. The mansion looks sturdy enough; Imeldific reportedly preferred to use materiales fuertes and not to cut corners for her pet projects. If she hadn’t been notorious for collecting fat commissions for otherwise worthy projects, things might have turned out differently for the country.

The entire People’s Park in the Sky can be turned into an eco-park with an art center, a museum or conference center. Isn’t it often said that there’s pera sa basura, money in garbage? The mansion isn’t even reduced to trash yet. Rather than let it go to rot, the property can be recycled and the complex developed into a prime tourist destination.

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Recycling: Speaking of recycling, this is one with a negative impact, especially on the administration’s avowed campaign against wrongdoing in public office: the musical chairs that President Duterte is implementing among the friends he has sacked from his government.

The recycling would be fine if he hadn’t kept saying in public that he had fired his friends and long-time supporters for corruption, with more to follow. Duterte has even publicly lamented that among those he has sacked are persons who had urged him to seek the presidency. He sighed as he asked: did they want him to hold power so they could enrich themselves at public expense?

If the officials had been sacked for corruption, criminal prosecution should have been initiated against them. Instead several were simply recycled to other positions and sinecures.

That’s a reward, not punishment. And the message it sends is, go ahead, steal pa more.