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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Covington: The red skeleton
By Gary Covington
Looking In
THURSDAY last started with a pleasant sunny morning, cheering after the previous evening and night of rain. An ideal morning for an excursion and in particular an excursion to view the red skeleton. To see is there had been any progress made on the ironwork, which sits somewhat incongruously on the City Council's roof.
Once in the building and as usual I wandered about a bit. Noting the new paint. Keeping an eye out for television crews ambushing councilors (zero), press people flourishing spiral-bound notebooks (zero) or even the councilors themselves but no, nary a one, another zero. I went upstairs to try for the roof.
Amazing! The way was clear, the previously encountered stairwell barricade of junked furniture cleared away. The only possible obstacle to my climbing to the roof was the officer of the day or, as this personage was a charming young lady, the officers of the day.
I smiled my best smile. A look at the roof? No problem. Carry on.
Up close, even to a non-engineer's eye, the steelwork does have some strange kinks and twitches and curiously it doesn't look so impressive as when viewed from the ground. In fact it looks very ordinary, like a nurseryman's glasshouse without the glass but then who cares a hoot about the ironmongery. Look at that view.
True, I was only four storeys up (and with the usual Covington efficiency, camera-less) but Davao, thank goodness, is not yet a high-rise city. Beneath and all around me the city was humming away. To the east lay Samal and the sea; to the north Matina ridge and the hills of Ma-a and, thanks to Wednesday night's air-cleansing rain, off to the west was the familiar notch of Mount Apo.
I wondered why nobody downstairs, instead of spending millions on a load of steelwork, hadn't thought of creating a rooftop rest and recreation area. Rigup a few ornamental gardens; there's no soil (or very little) required as we know from those pleasing patches of plants decorating the third floor corridors. Erect some fancy tents for shade and a handful of trellises climbing with vines for a dash of greenery.
Here's the place to bring courtesy-visiting delegates and dignitaries. Give them a chair, a cooling drink and a buffet and point out the landmarks. Flash hotels charge an arm and a leg for the privilege. The stairs are there. The roof is there. All it needs is a little imagination.
Downstairs again I buttonholed a trio of SP inmates and asked them what the roof deck structure was for. Storerooms? Badminton courts? Bowling lanes? No one knew. Or maybe it's an SP secret.
According to reports published in the press Phase 1 plus Phase 2 of the roof deck project will cost close to P10,000,000. Ten million pesos. What else can I buy for that? Turn to the newspaper's property for sale pages.
I could buy a six-bedroomed, five-bathroomed house at Buhangin for P3.8m plus a five-bedroomed house on Belisario Road for P3.0m PLUS a bungalow on Ladislawa subdivision for P2.8m.
The red skeleton? Toss it over the side boys. Start again.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (October 11, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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