Sunday, May 06, 2007 City revives 'moment of reflection'
ACTING Baguio Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. signed Administrative Order (AO) 162 on Thursday, reviving 17-year-old Resolution 337-1990 which asks the public to observe a time of silence, serenity and meditation every 6 p.m.
Bautista recalled that "Resolution 162 was passed by the City Government a few months after the 1990 earthquake with the purpose of encouraging the practice of ecological conservation."
"It was, after all, a time when the people of Baguio realized that nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means," he said.
Bautista added: "The practice of stopping for a prayer every 6 p.m. goes way back when I was a kid."
"But realizing that Baguio is now a melting pot of religious beliefs, the strongest commonality we have is our ecology and our co-equal responsibility in preserving it," he said.
AO 162 directs local traffic enforcers to hold vehicular traffic in the central business district upon the sounding of the 6 p.m. siren. Motorists are encouraged to put off their engines for five minutes or until the siren has stopped.
It, likewise, encourages City Hall and line agency personnel "to institute the changes starting with the government by leading the five-minute pause, setting an example for the city's constituency to emulate."
"The five-minute pause is for each one of us to have a moment of reflection about how fragile Mother Nature is; to appreciate her beauty; and to give her even a few moments within which to breathe and respond wondrously to five minutes of conservation." (IL)
