Thursday, July 03, 2008 So: A people’s park By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
A FEW years back, a Singaporean friend and her family visited Cebu for the first time. They stayed in an expensive resort in Mactan and loved the beach. Their three children, a son and two daughters, couldn’t get enough of the beach.
My friend wanted to see the other parts of Cebu and asked if there was a park where she could bring her kids to run around while she spread a blanket and bask under the shade of trees.
A park, hmm. Plaza Independencia? Fuente Osmena? Either of these choices would be one great experience for my friend and her family, I thought. I imagined the perverts and pickpockets feasting on them and the stench of urine wafting in the air.
Out of curiosity, a friend and I had lingered in Plaza Independencia and sat on one of the concrete benches under the trees.
We were alert and very mindful of our belongings and whoever sat near us. At another time, we went to Fuente Osmena and killed time posing for photographers with the fountain as background. We didn’t want to be strangers in our own city. (Our photos showed us tightly clutching our bags.)
Based on these experiences, I recommended to my Singaporean friend to check out another kind of park—the marine park in Hilutungan or the bird park in Olango, both in Mactan.
Wish ko lang that Cebu City had a public park similar to what Davao City has.
They call it “People’s Park” because it truly is. Located downtown of the city, it is accessible to all and it’s free. It is the kind of park where one can have a picnic, run around, muse over Kublai Millan’s large sculptures of durian and Bagobo children at play, de-stress, hold a pictorial, and just zone out by watching the interactive waterfalls.
It is a public park like no other in the country. It is the kind my Singaporean friend had in mind but not the kind we have in Cebu. My friend’s imagination does not match my reality.
Like Enchanted Kingdom in Laguna, music is heard all over the park but thankfully, it’s not “It’s a Small World.” Music is regulated at the People’s Park, such that only original Pilipino compositions can be played. I don’t know if “Nananabik,” a song with sexual undertones, has ever been played at the park. When I visited the park, I couldn’t name the tunes. I guess Andrew E’s songs will never be heard at the People’s Park.
The Davao City Government spent P71 million to develop the four-hectare park. Critics of the project have to see for themselves the benefits that the park has brought to the people of Davao City (less tension, weight loss, acne diminution, hair re-growth, etc.). Audit findings have revealed the absence of any anomalous transaction in the construction of the People’s Park. Davaoenos are proud of their park.
In three years, the foliage of the tropical trees planted all over the park will sieve the sunlight, its landscape designer Ed Viacrucis said when the park opened last January. It will be a forest park in the middle of the city. It will be a jogger’s paradise.
If Cebu City had a park like this, I’d be wearing the latest running shoes as I tour my visiting friends in the park.
