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Sunday, April 06, 2003
Agustin: Is Baguio the city of billboards?
By Leonora San Agustin
DON'T you think is high time that we remove all those " Panagbenga" advertisement? That includes removing the empty frames that were meant to accommodate all the eager and extra advertisers who though they could make an advertisers paradise in Baguio for Panagbenga.
When we wrote about putting that signboard corner at the confluence of Governor Pack and Harrison Roads in order, we never realized how stupidly the idea was implemented. Knowing how intelligent and convincing the officers of City Hall in charge of advertisement signs and billboard are I though they would construct something efficient, useful and beautiful in that corner.
When they started putting up those metallic frames, we patted ourselves at the back and said, "well, that is listening to the public pulse." Little did I know that patting myself at the back for stupidly thinking that City Hall listens was one of the dumbest conclusions I have made in my writing career.
What did City Hall do instead? They plastered the whole city with those banner frames and festooned the city with banners calling attention to phrases and words like "ang galing nang dating ng Globe"; Welcome to Baguio by Mayor Vergara"; "Coke for Sumvac"; Milyon na ang Touch mobile family"; etc., ect. - so much so that our city looks like a plaza in the boondocks that received a bonanza of dollars from a balikbayan. Can't we be more sophisticated about our advertisements? The city is what they call in Ilocano "nagalas!"
With all those banners and billboards (some reaching up to the blue skies) we have become the billboard city of the Philippines. For a small city like ours why does City Hall allow those huge and wide billboards to dominate the skies? Up to this time, the "Greenwich sobrang sarap" billboard on top of the hillside of Pines Hotel tops and mars the view of pine trees as one comes in to the city. Why is it still there? For that matter, while the traffic at the terminal has became better, why do we allow those big billboards to dwarf a terminal as small and as congested as our terminal. Why? Oh why? Why? Because the contract is fatter if the Greenwich signboard stays longer.
So going down deep into the roots of all things ugly proliferation making Baguio the Billboard City in the Philippines is money, money, money and more money! The longer the billboards stay up there, the bigger the signs, the more trees the billboard tops or hides- the bigger the pockets and uglier our city looks.
But as rumors have it - that in the "Panagbenga" takes - nothing went into the treasury. Where did it go? According to the City Hall gossips, the take was divided between the executive and legislative hierarchy of the city with the lady official of the same party getting the biggest slice of the cake! This is rumor, mind you! You cannot go around asking for profits- one cannot prove rumors.
Rumormongering is a destructive pastime and we should not indulge in it, but the way advertisement billboards sprout all over the city skies, makes one believe that perhaps rumors are rooted in the dirty hanky-panky happenings in the City Hall departments.
The advertisement paid their share as promised but many of those who promised reneged on their promises, so the Panagbenga people has to scrounge around local banks and local companies came across even if they were not originally in the list. They even had to put up the pictures of the Mayor and the Congressman saying "Welcome to Baguio" because the committee had so many empty frames. But there was no money in the treasury - so where did all the advertisers' fees go?
It is a fact that most officials start their public life us honest servants - no takes - no under the table arrangements - but as these officials mature in their jobs and get progressively higher in the political ladder the system becomes too strong for their weak bones and slowly assimilate the contagious disease of "corruption arthritis", which for some political trapos become life long daily sustenance.
This disease is very prevalent among those especially in the public works and engineering sectors, permits and licensing offices, the enforcers along our city streets and most of all perhaps in the market areas. Of course, there are good "gems" among these people but gems are rare and finding some is a blessing to the citizenry.
But going back to the billboards and banners, they are old date and monotonous. Why don't we pull them down? For the Holy Week at least, give Baguio visitors a chance to see the blue skies which distract their views. Put a new look to Baguio for the Holy Week - pull down all those advertisements and empty frames and let Baguio look clean and uncluttered.
With a war going on and terrorist accidents here and there in our country - many people would prefer Baguio for vacation or rest during the Holy Week. No carnival, no advertisements, no crowd, no palabas - just Baguio as it was and still is. Just people down Session Road hailing their friends, stretching out their legs in a pleasant walk to the coffee shops or to churches. No vendors, no taxes. Wouldn't that be a pleasant change?
(April 6, 2003 issue)
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