Estremera: Reflections in and on a growing city

STEADY. That's how Davao's growth has been through the past two decades, its march just goes on despite some bumps and spikes.

But can you imagine a giant grow? That's how I see this giant city -- once a giant baby that is now growing, and growing. And that's where my trepidation comes from.

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From a chaotic image in the 1980s, Davao has become a destination that everyone from all over the Philippines would want to visit -- many of whom settle in and they come from all classes. From the informal settlers to taxi drivers to young Manila entrepreneurs to near-retiring executives. That means, more people, more traffic, more problems. Just imagine the gigantic scale a giant city is capable of growing, that is if we continue to disregard the warnings of urban blight that is now facing us.

Jam-packed public schools, out of school youths who do nothing but break out in a riot after a night's drinking beyond the liquor ban hours at Bonguyan beach, reckless drivers that include the horde of trisikad, trisiboat and habal-habal drivers who recognize no traffic rule nor basic road courtesy.

Just imagine, just less than two decades ago, it was unthinkable for drivers not to park close to the kerb in order to load, unload, or wait. Now, they will just stop at the outermost lane, some even occupying a portion of the inner lane as well unmindful of the inconvenience they cause other motorists.

Just less than two decades ago, tricycles, the only vehicle with three wheels, were only allowed on the streets of Calinan, Toril, and Agdao. Now, all three-wheeled vehicles except those with regular franchises -- the real tricycles -- can wreak havoc in just about every street and highway. The vehicles of the masses are allowed to breed incessantly; a number of which are driven by reckless youths who would otherwise not have been given license to drive.

How all these could just compound into one giant problem as huge as the city leaves nothing but trepidation.

Yes, I love my city. It has nurtured me through all these years, but the mob is continuing to fill up nooks and crevices and the growth is just too astounding to control, and so, I look to the suburbs where I can still see my city with a real Dabawenyo's pandering appreciation, but from a distance.

Just like an artist who has to step back to see his painting, we need to distance ourselves to see our city in a wider perspective, and thus learn to see how everything looks like; the chaos, the growth, the migration of the reckless mob... and hopefully be able to do something about it before everything explodes into the chaos Metro Manila allowed itself to be.

Talking of explosions... so Stephen Hawking has a new book that argues that God did not create the universe. Cool! I wonder what's with the name though... J.R.R. Tolkien wrote all those books about hobbits and orcs and black riders. J.K. Rowling wrote about magic and Harry Potter. Richard Dawkin wrote God Delusion, now Stephen Hawking writes "The Grand Design". Oh, yes, marketing...

That aside, I say that's cool because that's how we should attack life. To listen, to understand, to see from both humorous and critical eyes. But I'm sure the Catholic hierarchy wouldn't welcome Hawking's book, in the same way that they did not welcome the movie made from the first book of Philip Pullman's trilogy -- The Golden Compass. I loved it. But that's because my idea of fun is sipping wine and watching Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" with my very good friend, a Catholic priest, while on the screen a roomful of children of a poor family sing, "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great...", as Monty Python puns Roman Catholicism. The priest was very quiet. I guess he knew me better such that he must have known that rising up to the bait will land him in deeper trouble.

Others wouldn't be that evolved and would rile and rail as I would expect Hawking's book will be riled and railed against. Dogma makes rabid defenders, anywhere, for any cause, for anything... they even kill for their religion.

And then back to the city... let's just hope that those who have the power to implement laws and changes will not be like a rabid Church attacking The Golden Compass. There's nothing like critical and playful eyes to guide a lumbering city along. Our parents did that when we were kids, they were critical, they were playful, thus look what we have become. saestremera@yahoo.com